6 February 20234:081,100 views on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
The mast is the part of an eFoil almost nobody shops for, and it is also one of the parts that decides what the whole board costs. Carbon fiber has been the default for years. This episode goes to the place where the boards are made to look at the alternative.
Why an aluminum mast matters to the price
The headline from the factory visit is a new aluminum mast, and the reason to care about it is not performance first, it is cost. Carbon layup is expensive to produce, and it feeds straight through into what you pay at the end. An aluminum mast is presented here as the change that makes buying a board significantly more affordable, which is the difference between an eFoil being out of reach and being merely expensive.
The comparison, and why you should watch it rather than assume
The obvious assumption is that carbon wins on every axis and aluminum is the compromise you accept to save money. The episode runs the two side by side and reports the results of that comparison as surprising, so go in without deciding the answer in advance. If you are weighing a purchase, this is the section that changes what you order.
A factory visit, and rivers instead of open water
The rest of it is access. This is a look inside the Lift eFoil factory in Puerto Rico with company co-founder Nick Leason, including a preview of technology that had not shipped yet at the time of filming. The riding is on rivers rather than the ocean, which is a setting most eFoil footage never shows, and it is worth watching for how differently a board behaves in moving water hemmed in by banks.
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