1 June 20236:39839 views on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
Most setup advice arrives as a chart. This episode arrives as an interview instead: Laura has ridden nearly every combination available, and the conversation works backwards from what each one actually felt like to a rule you can apply to your own order. If you are trying to decide what to buy, the useful part is not which parts she ended up on, it is why.
Board size: as small as you can manage
Two boards get compared, a longer Lift 2 sport model and the much shorter Lift 3 Pro. The smaller board is clearly better in the turns, and the phrase used is that you can hold way sharper corners on it. The only downside named is a real one: if you are a bigger rider, a small board can simply be too little volume to work with. The other argument for going small has nothing to do with riding. A short board with the mast attached is light enough to pick up and carry fully rigged, which changes how often you actually get on the water.
Tall mast, fewer breaches
Both boards were ridden on the short mast and the tall one, and the tall mast wins without much argument. The reasoning is straightforward: it gives you more vertical room to work in, so you can climb without punching the wing through the surface. On the shorter mast the recurring problem was breaching, the foil coming out of the water and dropping you, rather than crashing back down. If you are choosing between mast lengths and you are past the very first sessions, that is the trade to weigh.
Small wing for carving, big wing for stability
The front wings split along a clean line: the smaller one is built for carving, the larger one for stability and lift. On the small board with the small wing she was never able to get up at all, which is exactly the failure mode you would expect from too little lift under a low volume board. The larger wing worked on both boards and was preferred on both. Going the other way has consequences too. Too much wing for your weight means the foil climbs hard every time you turn and you spend the session fighting it back down rather than steering it.
The rule that comes out of it
Buy the wing for your body weight and your riding style first, then take the smallest board you think you can handle. A lighter rider around one hundred and ninety pounds can ride a smaller wing comfortably and possibly go smaller still. Add forty or fifty pounds and you want more wing under you to get up and stay up. She settled on a Surf wing in the larger size for her own riding. The episode also spends a while on the cost side, comparing running an eFoil with running a wakeboard boat, where a shipped replacement part beats weeks in a shop and the purchase prices are not in the same league.
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