Hydroflyer

Almost every eFoil asks you to balance on a bare board and steer with your hips. Hydroflyer took the opposite route: it bolted a handlebar column to the deck. You stand holding something solid, the throttle sits in your hand, and the board stops being a balance exercise long enough for you to learn what the foil is actually doing under you.

The idea came from Canadian inventor Jerry McArthur, who built the machine around a Unifoil hydrofoil and put it into production through Uni Electric Vehicles in 2021. The design was distinctive enough to earn a US design patent in April 2023, and it works: the foil lifts at roughly four knots, so the moment the board leaves the water arrives early and gently rather than as a lurch.

The line-up is two platforms and three drivetrains. Cruiser is the long one, 226 cm with a V-nose that cuts into oncoming chop; Sport is a third shorter, quick to change direction and happier being thrown around. Each comes as AL with a fibreglass hull and a 60 cm aluminium keel, CF in full carbon on a 78 cm keel, or FF, which keeps the carbon and doubles the motor to 10 kW.

What carries across the whole range is the same submerged propeller, the same 2.4 kWh battery and the same wireless throttle — and the same reason people pick a Hydroflyer over a conventional eFoil: something to hold on to.