Jatem's Tow Boogie

Updated the tow handle so it doesn’t submarine as often when I’m looking for a foiling pickup, after riding a wave. It’s only 85mm wide. The bigger handle was pulling under the water when the towb was driving alongside me on good sized swell. This small handle weighs 28g and does an ok job at bouncing around on the surface. A higher tow point would keep the handle above the water, but I want the tow point low for water starts, to keep the nose of the towb from rising up too much.

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The tow handle above is ok, but it gets a bit fatiguing to hold for a long time.
I designed a hollow 3d printed handle which is filled with PU expanding foam, similar to what you would use in a Bremote. This new handle is very lightweight, more streamlined, comfortable to hold, and it has rounded ends that don’t damage your foil board. It has low drag, so it doesn’t get pulled under the water too much, which makes it good for the all important foil pumping tow handle pickups you should be doing, so that you save heaps of runtime and get more waves. It’s my preferred tow handle.

I also built a new tow boogie, and squeezed more battery into the same overall weight. I’ve put 13s9p into roughly the same sized polycarbonate case and pelican 1450. I’ve used Samsung 50e2 high capacity cells, with an expected capacity of 25% more than the 13s8p Samsung 40T3 pack I was previously using. I’m using the Axis ART 1201 most of the time in small conditions, and the cruise efficiency is around 65wh/km, with 750-800W.

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That’s amazing efficiency! I’m almost double that.

I’m usually on a 1125cm2 wing, travelling at 20-25kph, weighing in at 95kg.

My boogie by its self when I’m on a wave uses up 2000w+ just to keep up.

Part of my tow handle redesign was an effort to reduce power consumption while the boogie is alongside me on swell, as typical ski handles create heaps of drag. And to allow a high rate of foiling handle pickups, which need the handle near the water surface. I’ll have to measure the power usage while on a wave.

Hi i am using the Erayfoil with Go-FOC G300 - MakerX and have problem if I am 10 meters away or more from the receiver , the signal strength is good in remote but the throttle level gets bad , it stops and start etc . if i move closer it works fine but built a two boogie and need to be about 10 meters away :frowning:

Any ideas ? How far away from receiver does your remote work with fine throttle signal ?
my mail jesper@bremme.se pls help me
I also cant find the supplier contact ? Bought it on Aliexpress

You should ask your question here so that all the 89 contributors can see it…

Hi i am using the Erayfoil with Go-FOC G300 - MakerX and have problem if I am 10 meters away or more from the receiver , the signal strength is good in remote but the throttle level gets bad , it stops and start etc . if i move closer it works fine but built a two boogie and need to be about 10 meters away :frowning:

Any ideas ? How far away from receiver does your remote work with fine throttle signal ?
my mail jesper@bremme.se pls help me
I also cant find the supplier contact ? Bought it on Aliexpress

For some reasons, the link didn’t work and you posted twice in the current thread.
You can try again with this one: 'Erayfoil Remote: Unboxing and Review

I’ve had good range results with the flipsky vx3 remote with the boogie. When on foil and on a wave range seems to be about 100m. When off foil and swimming back to the boogie (remote close to the water) range seems about 30 meters.

Sounds like a mismatched/ poor antenna design where it allows good receiving, but bad transmitting. You could open it up to ensure the antenna is properly connected?

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Hej Jesper!

I have also built a tow boogie and I am using the Maytech remote and experience similar problems as you. Did you solve yours?

My signal with erayfoil remote is also weak so this might be a general problem for this remote.

Three reasons: I have a friend who weighs 100+ kg, I have an 8-liter board) and when using two motors spaced apart on the sides, the board does not turn as readily as I would like. If not for the first two reasons, two 6384 motors would be quite enough for me. Unfortunately, I can’t give data yet, as a result of a loosely closed lid, water got into the box and both Makerbase 75200 controllers no longer work, red and blue diodes are lit on one and there is a FAULT_CODE_UNDER_VOLTAGE error, the second incorrectly passes the detection procedure. Now I use old BDLC controllers.

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Looking good. Did you find that two 6384s wasn’t enough power to take off? 2 hours run time is solid, what’s your cruise power consumption in wh/km? I would get tired of maintaining bearings on an outrunner with saltwater use, but I guess lots of foil assist users are doing it.

That’s unique! - I tried a similar thing to test an extreme forward 65161 motor position. I rotated the mast plate 180° and revered direction in the vesc too. Worked ok, but the lack of a nose cone on the prop caused weird cavitation issues.

Oops, instead of replying, I edited my post (

Thank you. I also had cavitation, especially at high speeds. Today I replaced the propellers with Bambu PLA printed props, the plastic is slightly stronger than normal PLA and the cavitation is much less.

I don’t get how the boogies are steered really? The fins maintain straight tracking - i guess, but turns, how are they initiated and kept?

You turn the tow boogie by pulling either left or right on the rope. E.g you turn left, the boogie will start turning right and once the turn is initiated you simply just turn and follow the boogie. It works surprisingly well and I’ve never felt the need for any other type of steering.

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hey @Jatem I’m going to a flat boogie board on my existing TOW. I like that you’ve managed to improve the CG why using the mast to attach the motor directly with that 90° part.

I’m using active cooling and wondering if you can modify your existing part to allow a 6mm inlet tube in the nose cone… which will go into the mast ? that would be amazing and a direct fit for my upcoming modified build

Thanks