Your first eFoil lesson: what actually happens

The main thing stopping people booking an eFoil is not the price. It is the quiet

suspicion that they will be the one person who cannot do it.

So here is exactly what the hour looks like.

Before you get on the board (10 minutes)

You get a wetsuit and an impact vest — there is a short list of

what to bring and, more usefully, what to leave in the car. The wetsuit is less about cold — Ibiza water in

August is around 26°C — and more about not grazing yourself on the board.

Then the briefing, which is genuinely short, because an eFoil has one control: a handheld

wireless throttle. Squeeze for more power, release for less. There is a kill switch on a

leash. That is the whole interface.

The part of the briefing that matters is the fall. You will fall. The instruction is to

fall flat and sideways, away from the board, and not to reach for it. The foil is under the

water and it has edges. Fall like a starfish, not like you are trying to save something.

Stage one: lying down (2-3 minutes)

You start lying on the board, moving at walking pace. This feels faintly ridiculous and it

is the most important part of the lesson, because it is where you learn that the throttle

is not an on/off switch.

Stage two: kneeling (5 minutes)

Up onto your knees, still on the surface, still slow. Here you learn to steer, which on an

eFoil is done by leaning rather than turning. Most people find this stage easy and get

impatient.

Stage three: standing on the surface (5 minutes)

Feet where your knees were, board still flat on the water. This is where the first falls

usually happen, and they are harmless — you are going slowly and you fall into deep water.

Stage four: flight (the moment)

Once you are stable standing, the instructor tells you to add throttle and shift your weight

slightly back.

And then the noise stops.

That is the bit nobody warns you about. When the foil lifts the board clear of the surface,

the slapping and the spray just stop, and you are moving in near-silence about half a metre

above the water. Everyone reacts to it the same way, and it is why people book a second

session before they have taken the wetsuit off.

First flights typically last two or three seconds. Then you overcorrect, the nose comes up,

and you fall. You get straight back on.

The rest of the hour

By around 20 minutes most people are getting flights of 10 seconds or more. By 40 minutes,

a good number are riding the length of the bay and turning.

Nobody rides the whole hour. The forearm that holds the throttle tires before your legs do.

What actually determines whether you find it easy

Not fitness. Not age — we teach people in their sixties regularly. We set out the real

requirements in can you eFoil with no experience. The two things that

matter are:

• Whether you can relax. Tension makes you stiff, stiff makes you overcorrect.
• Whether you listen about the throttle. Almost every early fall is too much power too

early.

Snowboarders and wakeboarders tend to pick it up quickest, because the lean-to-steer instinct

is already there. Surfers sometimes take slightly longer, oddly, because the instinct to pop

up quickly works against you.

Do I need to be a strong swimmer?

You need to be comfortable in deep water and able to swim. You wear a buoyancy vest for the

whole session and the instructor is beside you.

What is the minimum age?

16 alone, or 12 with a parent present. Weight matters more than age — riders under about

40kg struggle to hold the board down.

How many people can go at once?

One rider at a time per instructor for a first lesson. If there are two of you, you can

share the hour and swap, which most couples end up preferring because watching the other

person is half the fun.

What if I cannot do it?

In practice this does not really happen — nearly everyone gets airborne in the first

session. If you genuinely cannot get up, you keep the instructor and the board for the full

hour and we work on it. We do not take a deposit, so there is nothing at stake in trying.