When you’re a beginner in efoil or wingfoil, you don’t have much choice:
1- start on the small board you want to keep and face some difficulties : you save money but not time (learning time in 6, 12, 18 months)
2- start on a big board and decrease the volume step by step: saves learning time (days or weeks) but not money (losses due to resale)
After Waydoo, LIFT have just released a board volume assist (BVA) called the Blowfish: Lift Foils | eFoil Electric Surfboard | Premium Surf & Hydrofoils, an interesting item that adds volume to an existing board, like training wheels do for kids on a bicycle.
Advantage list:
Removable,
Transforms board hard edges into soft ones,
Inflatable so packs really small when deflated (travelling)
The Blowfish can be fitted on a non LIFT board, resold without loosing too much (second hand market coming), lent,… while keeping the initial board
Next step: How to make a DiY board volume assist (BVA) from an an old inflatable kite / wing ?
If you have ever repaired a kite or wing, you realize it is a bit expensive for what it is especially if only used for a couple of days or weeks…
Why hasn’t it been done in cheaper kite/wing materials Dacron + bladders ?
If you’re cautious during use and don’t leave it in the sun, you can even use the kite original spi as BVA bottom skin.
Answer: sure, it is not as durable but they also don’t want you to cross-link and use this path.
No, its actually pretty amazing how it can change touchdowns for inexperienced riders. It also makes a big difference for guys starting out or those with families. Now they can buy a 4’9 or 4’2 and get much more stability for teaching and younger riders. Weirdly enough it will probably damage lifts sales of their bigger boards.
True. I rather had in mind wingfoiling where starting on a 80cm wide board is much more easy for a beginner than on a 60cm wide one. Width has a lot of importance regarding the stability during the first hours of practice.
Hi, Jezza, I am in Rennes/Lancieux_Bretagne, I bought a lift2 that has some problems and I am preparing to get it to work. working ones are more interesting, but broken ones maybe too, if i decide to just use the box and fit a contemporary Vesc.
I’m currently using a friend’s lift3 efoil board and the v2 standard controller went on the fritz after what appeared to be water getting in the housing. I cleaned all the pcb’s, coated them with nail polish and used liquid tape to pot the trigger hall effect board. Everything works now as it should but I have not yet water tested. However when looking at the pcb there appears to be a uart port on the main pcb. Has anyone tapped into it?
As an aside, I found it interesting that Lift appears to do nothing besides the housing to protect the boards. The connection wires where the batteries come through is potted but based on my rudimentary knowledge of microelectronics the boards do not appear to have any coating or protection if water gets in there. In my case the water intrusion was minimal but was enough. For $290 it seems that secondary protection in the way of at least coating the boards would be wise or since they don’t sell spare parts, just seal up the whole housing which I don’t think would increase the weight substantially.
My solution of just using nail varnish on the boards along with potting the trigger sensor worked for a little while but eventually succumbed to the water intrusion. I plan to take the controller back apart to determine where the water is getting in and design a better solution.
