Twelve thousand dollars apiece! Plus shipping and tax.
A little real talk. Most of us are butchers on our surf crafts.
We either go too slow, too fast, we’re too loose, too stiff, our cutbacks are too far on the face or we pointlessly launch into the air.
At some point, surely, a surfer recognises the futility of time and money wasted and moves towards a pursuit that suits his failings. Golf, for instance, or wandering, ever so sadly, around shopping centres on Saturday mornings with wives who long stopped reciprocating affection or desire, who feign sleep in bed, whose bodies stiffen at your touch.
Which is why the clip below elevates my heart rate and kicks my spirits into the skies. Surf like the Hawaiian prince Kai Lenny on a hydro-foil and… best part… no skill necessary!
The electric flying surfboard’s inventor Nicholas Leason explains his vision:
To harness the power of a wave and surf like a bird, although extremely rewarding, is difficult. Not because riding a foil is hard, but controlling the source -flying a kite or surfing a wave- takes skill. To harness that type of power and gain excellent control is something that may take years to master.
So I set out to make it easy.
I started with the simple task of strapping an electric motor to our foils. My team and I took some parts we had in the shop, cut holes in them, bought some parts off the shelf and pretty much duct-taped pieces together. It took some tweaking, but eventually we got our first ride of about 50 feet.
From that moment on, I was possessed. Imagine taking someone that has never dreamt of surfing, deep powder snowboarding or flying. A person that doesn’t live the extreme lifestyle and within minutes they feel it all. They’re soaring like a bird, carving butter smooth turns and experiencing the freedom of flying through the freeways of the ocean, rivers or lakes. That was my goal, but what I thought would take a year to build took a whole lot more.
Anyway, took a few years, but the company Lift Foils is taking pre-orders for their electric flying surfboards. They cost twelve thousand American dollars, plus shipping and tax, and you gotta sling ’em a six-gee deposit to show ’em you’re serious.