Ouch, poor kid. 
It was a ducted setup though.
@Flightjunkie this is your hood right? Have you heard it yet?
Stay healthy,
Jan
Ducted setups are more dangerous because you can’t get your fingers/toes free when the prop spins up. Very dangerous. Sucks to see this happen, safety is our #1 priority in this sport.
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They in fact are, if you get stuck in them with your fingers and toes. Which is very unlucky, like this 10-year old boy…
For all other accidents they prevent you from chopping into your legs or arms.
But yeah, this is a dangerous sport and we shouldn’t get tired of reminding people of how important it is to jump away in case of losing control!
Terrible case. Ducted or not, a spinning propeller is serious business and will always be a risk. Don’t know the details in this case but would not having an instant stop of the motor & propeller when you “exit” the board, a lanyard kill switch(cutting power instantly) in addition to the remote improve safety ? With the remote only guess there is the risk you are not releasing the trigger fast enough? Obviously the propeller has some spinning momentum for a short time when cutting the power but that can not be very long considering the resistance of water& and motor?
Jumping away from a taco or folding chair fall (common among beginners) is hard as we all know. I’d wager it was this sort of fall as it’s the only way I can really see a digit being near the prop. As was said, normally you’d assume a leg or foot. Rough break but fortunately very rare it seems.
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i have more then 5years experiance with riding EFOILS and there ar dangeres ewen if you experiance and you want jumping with them 
therefor i have dewelopment FLYWAY and its JUMPING MACHINE and 100% more adrenalin and agresive riding with them and we have make loot of testing with 0 experiance people and we have see that its almoste 0% chance that you hit wings becuse you alwais hit wather away from then and if you fall off that you imdiatle stop prop becuse switch brake.
stay safe guys and this its alsoe good opertunity for forum guys that you can dewelopment safe efoil switch and sell biger company
Not fair to use an accident to advertise!
im not advertise im only show that there ar diferent way and more safe way and if you think that im advertise i can delet prewius post.
im not that guy
My Lift board says no one under 16 yrs old
Waydoo says
Minors under the age of 16 need to use this product under the supervision and
guidance of adults. Safety summary as part of the operating safety knowledge is
included. Please read the entire contents of the disclaimer and safety operatin
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I don’t understand how an Efoil is advertised for kids as well to begin with.
Yes some of these kids have certainly more skills than I do, but this is still a rotative blade being used, why the heck would you give this to kids ? Even I would 1000% hurt myself, no matter if this is a conventional Efoil or the new ones coming with handles.
Do we let kids ride cars or boats like this ? …
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I think especially people who have some experience in water sport are too confident while trying efoil. I had tons of first efoilers on my boards and the ones without any or minor water sports experience did the best. Started slow and early jump off, away from board when things got out of hand. You can see the kids foot position in the video; it’s very centered to the middle axis, like he may have done hundred of times when surfing. But for efoil this is not optimal, it’s very wobbly. the board can easily drift away one direction and you fall the opposite; resulting to land on it.
And better not advertise efoil to kids.
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this is very very sad, as a father i can bearly image what he went through
i think we missing some fact here and we don’t have the all story even if it is the same terrible end, as we usually use our dominant hand to hold the remote (i see it on his left hand) and during that fall , it was to far away.
It’s pretty simple… If you buy and efoil and stick your 10 year old on it, expect them to get hurt at some stage. The board is just about the same weight as a 10 year old kid. On top of that there’s a lot to do with how you handle the remote when you fall. A lot of people clinch the trigger as they fall which is what this kid did. This is a typical case of a family not wanting to accept the risks they took and wanting to blame someone else for the stuff-up (and obviously a lawyer hungry for cash).
What is that wefoil brand ? Never heard of it? How does their motor look like?
Sadly there some people with the attitude of, “Oh yeah it’s electric, silent, not harmful”
Clearly this case is unfortunate, but I wouldn’t let my 10 year old kid hop on top of a 6HP mixer, regardless of his skills.
What Jezza said…I expect it’s like “whiskey throttle” in motorbiking or kiting safety releases, panic response when falling means you grip tighter rather than let go. I understand Lift has other safeties built in, it stops if board is more than x% angle or prop comes out of water. Would that have saved this?
I am intrigued by using efoil as a way to tow in to waves, then using wave power once in. So the folding props seem optimal … but it does raise the safety issue, even with safeties built in (and worse in a DIY scenario, with no safeties at all). I have experienced the taco / switchblade wipeout many times, it is like a punch in the face or going over the handlebars, happens so fast you don’t have time to think or protect yourself. That’s how I picture the worst case scenario here … you are into the prop before you know it. Big right there.
I think it depends for everyone. I for myself am throwing the remote away from me when e-mountain biking to make sure I have my hands free when falling on the ground. I have a funny gif of myself doing that for illustration, but this won’t be adapted in this thread.
What I think also, is that there will always be some issues with esports, whether this is an experienced rider or a newbie, this creates also good opportunities for people to make new products helping avoid this. Also, efoiling should be prohibited under 16 at least…
We’ve seen multiple remotes in the last couple years on the forum. Maybe one of these can include another safety feature : if the remote detects water (if it touches water on different points of the remote) the motor is forced to brake immediately. Kind of like a kill switch. Yes I know, that won’t be easy to make because this is watersport and you have always water on your hands, but you got the main idea I think
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Just thinking of possible fixes…maybe a kill switch is a pressure platform under back foot, moment your foot is off it, engine stops. Or put another way, motor can’t start until there’s some foot pressure. Though I guess that’s challenging for knee starting small boards. Hmm.
My coast guard buddy talks about how efoils are “illegal” in Canada. Which I think means they are lumped with a general ban on “motorized surfboards”, not really that any gov’t branch has specifically reviewed and denied them. However, if they do get reviewed, things like this will come under the microscope, protecting both riders and people nearby. The detachable kill switch on seadoos being a good example.
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My son keep asking to go for a ride and answer is no. I might look at building a jet powered efoil for him and beginner mates. A prop powered efoil will never be safe
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I’ll keep my kids away from these toys for a while, we are flying over a 1m knife…
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