11 October 20255:52633 views on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
Everybody waits for glass. Flat, mirror still water is the photograph everyone wants, and it is also the condition that makes judging your altitude hardest, because a surface with no texture gives your eyes nothing to measure against.
Depth perception is the hidden problem
On chop, the surface is covered in reference points. Every ripple tells you how far below you it is, and how quickly it is passing. Take those away and the water becomes a plane with no scale, so the distance between your foil and the surface becomes guesswork. That is where the odd, disorienting altitude vertigo of a perfectly calm day comes from, and why a rider can be more comfortable in conditions that look far worse from shore.
Chasing whitecaps in October
The session here comes from a Minnesota October that decided to run at ninety degrees, with big wind, whitecaps and full speed runs across the lake. There is a pontoon cameo in it too, neighbours who asked for a pass at speed. Warm air and hard wind late in the season is an unlikely combination, and it makes for the kind of textured water that rewards commitment rather than punishing it.
The album lands with the episode
This episode also introduces Verdant Ride: The Album, a fifteen track collection written for the feeling of eFoiling and spanning jazz, lounge, rock, synthwave and acoustic, composed by Stephan and performed by other musicians. The track featured here is Can’t Wake Up Now, performed by Raster Ops, built around the disbelief of flying a few feet above the surface and not wanting the ride to end.
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