I am very intrigued by the Hydroflyer and am curious if anyone on the forum has purchased one. If so how do they compare to the Fliteboard or Lift. Hydroflyer is coming out with a smaller board in the spring and that may be the ideal board to learn on and progress to efoiling with no stalk and handlebars.
Thoughts?
Greg
I’m not a fan of handles at all. The Flite Scooter is a completely different product, more of a jetski replacement or a boat runabout replacement.
The point of eFoiling is to be on as small a board as possible that is nimble and light.
Unless you have mobility issues, I would skip the handlebar based boards, unless you’re looking for an efficient way to get from A to B.
Learning curve for eFoiling is quite fast. I’m not that athletic and never did windsurfing, surfing, or kite-surfing and within one lesson I was foiling on a Pro. A dozen rides later I was foiling on a Fliteboard Ultra.
In general you want a bigger board for learning when you are on the water most of the time. When you get good and are flying most of the time, THEN you want a smaller board that’s easier to maneuver. The handle would be helpful for learning for sure, not so much later.
Thanks for the replies. My thoughts as well MLB. I feel that if I purchased the smaller board everyone would be able to learn quickly with the handlebars, then they would have the option to remove or not.
Greg
I think handlebar efoils are good choice if you do rentals and lessons.
For personal use I dont see any point in having a big massive board with handlebars, it will get boring quickly. Get the smallest one for personal use, you will progress pretty fast and they are easy to learn.
Hi @Greg_Fairweather - my thoughts as an employee of Hydroflyer…
I’m writing to this Forum with the blessing of Andreas to add to the communities understanding of the various foiling craft out there, and what their best designed use cases are. Hopefully providing facts and not being negative.
As @Surge states - efoils are basically surfboards on foils so you want the smallest one out there. If you like the surfing feeling buy an efoil. A Hydroflyer is not specifically designed for riding in the surf so it’s a compromise. It does jump waves very well however because of the ruggedised handlebars, plus we switched to wifi so our throttle doesn’t lose signal when you bury the board underwater.
It’s been really interesting seeing efoil brands launch handlebars recently. Flite, Aero, Waydoo, & Sifly. They give you the option to remove the handlebars so you can ride surf-style, which everyone agrees is cool. For this reason they recycle the original board designs, however it comes with a design compromise, as these are surfing style hulls - flat on the bottom with a pudgy rounded bow shape. This design sticks to the water upon touchdown, and the rider gets launched into the handlebars abruptly, whereas a hull design inspired by yachts, with a v-entry and volume under the bow ensures smooth descent and lift-offs.
There is another compromise which I’ll describe below…
Originally the founders at Hydroflyer marketed our handlebars as being removable so you could ride surf-style. I’ve talked them out of it because it’s such a compromise. Let the efoil companies do what they do well. Instead we focus on doing what we do well. This extends to our user interface which is a large colour screen (since the rider doesn’t have to hold it) and a simple trigger you pull to get going. The others are porting over their user interfaces from efoiling so you have this complicated arming system to navigate before you get going.
Interesting points, thank you for posting.
It makes sense that products should be segmented for specific use cases as this industry grows and matures.
It does all come down to the use case(s) of the riders. Nice to see we have so much choice!
cheers @Surge
An interesting trip I made offshore whale watching illustrates that.
I went with a friend who was on a small Fliteboard efoil. When we set out we were punching into swell and wind chop and he was very uncomfortable, whereas I was having a lot of fun. When we got near the whales he could not stop because that would mean dangling his feet in the water i.e. shark-bait whereas I could stand on the larger board with a handlebar and have a good view.
Going home with the swells he was having more fun than I as his board was totally set up for riding the waves.
Different use cases