The designer sees the device more as an e-bike on the water: for tours and for exploring rivers and lakes - over an hour's travelling time is good for this. Impression of our first round trip on Lake Walchensee: The jet drive is integrated into the foil deep in the water: safe and almost inaudible. The foil cuts cleanly through the water and leaves no more than a few millimetres of wave behind. For bathers on the beach, the disturbance factor is therefore zero. It was surprisingly easy for our tester - albeit with a lot of windsurfing foil experience - to get on the wing, the speed at half throttle was already impressive at just under 27 km/h after a few minutes, as was the feeling and "45 km/h is possible" claims Franz Hofmann - and that sounds plausible. It's really fun in calm conditions, but the sporting possibilities are probably limited in the long term compared to windsurfing or kite-foiling.
Will the "e-foil" nevertheless become the Segway of rivers and lakes or will it remain an exclusive water scooter for millionaires? The further development of the initially targeted price of 10,000 euros is likely to play no small role in this.
Stephan Gölnitz
Deputy Editor in Chief surf
