EFOILING
Whenever summer approaches, as predictable as roadworks on the M5 come newspaper articles about British surfing. The sea is warm(er), the sun shines (hopefully) and we all get to pretend that Cornwall is California. Or we might, if there were waves. As any British surfer will tell you, fewer storms in the Atlantic Ocean over summer means fewer waves on our shores. That’s where an eFoil comes in.
In 2019, after a decade of development, a Puerto Rican company called Lift launched a motorised surfboard that flies. Yes, you read that right. Called an eFoil, it is a board with a 5,000w electric motor and a foil – a hydrodynamic wing which lifts the board above the water for a ride that’s faster (no drag) and smoother (no chop). That’s the theory anyway.
Blogosphere footage of eFoils hovering above the sea is extraordinary. They are’s Marty McFly might have ridden. And now you can too – after Anglesey boat-tour operator RibRide opened the first foiling school in the UK, FoilRide. The FoilRide team hope their mums will book a session as well as the core market of intrigued surfers and paddleboarders. The question, though, is can any of them get airborne after a single lesson?
