As part of the Surfski.info World Rankings, we thought it would be interesting to check out the skis used by the top paddlers in the world - and the discussion quickly moved to the idea of a "constructor's championship"...

Here are the results of the "2006/2007 Surfski.info Constructor's Championship".

Why a Constructor's Championship?

We hope that what this will do is encourage the manufacturers to take sponsorships more seriously - and, for example, to take chances and sponsor young, upcoming paddlers with equipment too. 

Plus manufacturers will be encouraged not to do the copying thing - copies won't be welcome.

How it works

The top 20 paddlers on the World Rankings count their points towards the manufacturer of the ski that they paddled in each race.  (Why the top 20?  To be honest I couldn't confirm the skis used by paddlers lower down the ranking and in this case it didn't matter since the rest of the points wouldn't make any difference to the result.)

2006/2007 Surfski.info Constructor's Championship

The winner for 2006/2007 is...  Fenn Kayaks, the East London based South African manufacturer.

2006/2007 Surfski.info Constructors Championship
Pos	Paddler	Fenn Kayaks	Epic Kayaks	Custom Kayaks	Huki
1	Oscar Chalupsky		44
2	Dawid Mocke	43
3	Hank McGregor		25
4	Daryl Bartho	24
5	Barry Lewin			24
6	Lewis Laughlin	18
7	Ashley Nesbit	17
8	Zsolt Szadovszki				15
9	Mike Walker	13
10	Clinton Pretorius	11
11	Herman Chalupsky		11
12	Bevan Manson		8
13	Dean Gardiner	8
14	Greg Barton		7
15	Tim Jacobs		6
16	Matt Bouman		5
17	Leopold Tepa	5
18	Robert Clegg		5
19	Ben Fouhy	5
20	Dave Kissane		5
	Totals	144	116	24	15
	Position	1	2	3	4

Comments (2)

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Keith the Man
written by RJK, July 14, 2007

Well done to Keith and the Fenn paddlers.
For those of you who do not know but besides Keith making arguably the best boats in the world he was a paddler with outstanding talent, strength and stamina which few could match. Had he pursued his paddling career i believe that he would be dominating headlines till this day.( an untouchable) He is also a salt of the earth kind of guy which you would expect from a "slummies" boy.
Keith keep those designs coming through, you make the ocean a much easier,faster and enjoyable playground.

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written by GD, July 15, 2007

Well done Keith. Classic hard & fast ski's that have more than stood the test of time. One thing that RJK did not mention is that Kieth Fenn won the PE/EL in one of the toughest races of all time (if the chat around the fire is correct). Most of the field pulled out - some were actually ordered off the water - and he basically cleaned up on the last day (56kms) into a massive East head wind. Origional East Cape hard man - that has earned it the hard way.

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