Gorgeous dance or dangerous menace?

The SUP hydrofoil is here! Are you...... thrilled?

Hydrofoil surfing is much the rage what with Kai Lenny lapping waves etc. And what a ambassador he is no? Very handsome, very skilled, very brave, very magnetic. He is like a mix of Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton and I wonder, as he ages, if he will eclipse them as the most popular surfer alive.

Do you think?

In any case, remember a few months ago when the Japanese surf icon Yu Tonbi Sumitomo almost decapitated himself with a foil? Read here! Jamie Mitchell responded, at the time:

So lately I have been asked consistently about my thoughts on the so called “NEW” foil popularity and haven’t really said much but, yesterday, sadly, I saw a photo that I knew was coming sooner then later.

Foils are for open ocean swells, outer bombies and places where there are no people or very few people doing it together. Foils are dangerous. Very dangerous. And do not belong in the surf zone with the masses and general public.

And it makes very much sense.

Yet, I have been seeing more hydrofoil SUPing across social media these days and personally can’t think of anything more dangerous in the lineup. I would rather wander to my local break and see a shark’s fin prowling between waves than someone who is already inclined to SUP with an aluminum blade set to disembowel for good measure.

But does this thinking only expose the hardness of my heart? Is it like a man clutching a cassette tape while sneering at shiny CDs telling anyone who will listen that the new technology is creepy?

Am I that man?

The one who caresses his Case Logic soft CD carrier while sneering at the iPod telling anyone who will listen, “But where is the music? Where does it fit?”