Having grown up on the prairies of Canada, I was more familiar with ice skating than hydrofoiling. I was a competitive figure skater in Saskatchewan. Figure skating helped me learn how to balance, but more importantly, the sport introduced me to my wife who is also a figure skater. Today, we live on a small, quiet lake in upstate NY, about three hours north of NYC.
We met figure skating at MIT, where we both went to graduate school in engineering. I had never heard of hydrofoiling until I sat for an exam in my Fluid Dynamics course that had one question exploring a flapping hydrofoil wing. At the time, I didn’t believe a flapping front wing could propel anything. During that exam I remember staring at a blank page unable to write anything down, then looking at the clock in the classroom and realizing 30 minutes had gone by. I then quickly imagined myself on a plane ride back home after failing out of MIT.
I almost failed that exam, and I don’t think I thought about foiling again until I saw someone three years ago on our lake in the summer of 2018. From a distance, it looked like they were flying. I imagined it’s
