No but learning how to surf does help with efoiling.
Your skills as a surfer will help you ride eFoils over those without experience on a board.
As a surfer, knowing the pop up and how to maintain balance will help the most when riding a eFoil.
After all, surfing is ultimately where hydrofoiling and eFoiling came from. With eFoiling, it’s more about mastering the pop up and getting comfortable.
If you’re interested in learning how to surf, we recommend getting a lesson with a professional to save you a lot of headaches from learning on your own.
eFoiling is a skill in itself but let’s remember it’s automated!
Learning How to Surf
We recommend learning how to surf from a professional.
It’s always best to book a lesson with a qualified surf instructor instead of buying an expensive board and trying to learn on your own.
However, if you follow these four tips it will help you get the most out of your lesson.
Step One: Learning How to Paddle
Cup your hands, stretch your arms to the nose of the board and pull the water back.
You want to pull using your back, not just your arms. Once your hand pulls past your waist, reach up your hand back toward the nose for another stroke.
Swimming experience and cardiovascular health will certainly help you here.
Step Two: Learn How to Turtle Roll
If you’re just beginning to surf, having the turtle roll is a must have in your tool belt.
This is a defensive move. Duck diving is quicker and more of a rabbit move to blitz through waves. However, it’s just not practical with a longboard when starting out so we recommend the turtle roll.
When a wall of white water approaches, keep your nose facing the wave, use your hands to grab both of the rails and flip your board over. Like a turtle!
Ideally, after you flip the board you pull the board toward you, deeper in the water to slip it under the wave. Once the wave passes, flip the board over and get back out there!
Step Three: Learn How to Pop Up
It’s best to practice your pop up on land first before getting into the water.
While this may look silly, it will help build muscle memory when you do it in the ocean. When laying on the board, it’s important to keep your toes at the edge of the tail while keeping your weight in the center of the board.
Push your hands flat on the deck, like a push up. Do not grab the rails.
As you push up, bring your feet up and suck your knees into your chest and begin to stand up.
Step Four: Riding the Wave
If you’ve never surfed before this part is difficult to describe but here’s our best crack at it:
If you’re a beginner you’re maintaining your balance and looking to continue the ride by outrunning the whitewater down the line of the wave.
If you know what you’re doing once you stand up the wave is your canvas. Assuming you know what you’re doing you have plenty options for stylepoints.
Depending on the type of wave and your skill level surfers can :
- Cruise down the line of the wave until you’ve got no room to go.
- Go for a top turn
- Cutback to the wave’s whitewater
- Preform an aerial maneuver
- Send it and get tubed
Basic Tip: keep your knees bent at shoulder width apart and hands down.
How Surfing helps with eFoiling
We oversimplified surfing tremendously.
Knowing how to surf will help your pop up and balance while you’re eFoiling. Which is arguably the hardest part.
Popping up is where most beginners struggle, so if you know how to surf you’ll have an advantage compared to those who don’t. Popping up on an eFoil is much easier than manually popping up on a wave.
Similar to driving a manual car compared to an automatic. When riding a eFoil there’s no need to paddle.The remote control accelerates and controls the speed for you.
So the biggest barriers to entry are the pop up and maintaining balance while riding an eFoil.
Do I Need to Learn How to Surf to eFoil?
No but learning to surf does help.
It’s a net positive but it’s not a dealbreaker. Will it will be more difficult and take you a little more time to get the hang of it? Yes. But is it impossible? No, not at all.
eFoiling isn’t easy but we would argue learning to surf the old fashion way is a little more difficult than a board with an electric motor.
While surfing will help, many eFoilers do not have a surfing background and with a little elbow grease they can learn to eFoil in no time! eFoiling is for anyone.
However, it may be worth booking a surf lesson if you’re a little worried about your eFoil demo.
Do I Need to Know How to Surf to HydroFoil?
Yes, we strongly recommend learning to surf before hydrofoiling.
Hydrofoiling requires experience in surfing. Hydrofoiling is difficult, it’s much different than traditional surfing. It requires skill, balance, and proper equipment.
It’s also much more dangerous than surfing and eFoiling because the hydrofoil can pop out of the water or ventilate from imbalances caused by the rider. Making it risky when bailing from the hydrofoil instead of surfing.
Just ask team rider Liam McCarthy how that goes.
Putting Surfing, Foiling, and eFoiling Together
While you don’t need to learn how to surf before eFoiling it will save you a lot of time.
Surfing gives riders the fundamental lessons to help them succeed on a foil or eFoil. Foiling is both difficult and dangerous.
eFoiling is no easy feat either but may be easier to learn than hydrofoiling since it’s propelled by an electric motor instead of paddling or getting towed behind a boat.
FAQ on Surfing
How do I learn to surf?
Book a lesson with a qualified instructor.
This will save you a lot of time and money to help get you up to speed as quickly as possible.
If you’re not going to listen, then check out How to Rip on Youtube.
What is the Deck?
The deck is the flat part of the surfboard
What are the rails?
The rails are the edges of the outline of the board
Where is the nose on the board?
The nose is the front of the surfboard.
Where is the tail on the board?
You guessed it! The rear of the surfboard. You can tell it’s the tail because the fins are just below.