Electric motors on foils. As good as it looks?

Over the years it seems everyone that's gone from sup or prone surfing to foiling have pretty much never returned. Is it the same for wing foiling, kiting, kitefoiling, sup wing foiling and every other form of foiling when someone switches to the battery powered foils (flight lab, other brands etc etc) with the little motor everyone's using out in the line ups these days?

are they really that good? why?

im
talking about the ones that have come along the past two or three years not those efoil
thing that were around a while before them

i'm doing the foil assist thing but it merely complements my winging and kiting. i used to dread prolonged periods of no wind but now have something to do during such times. i still prefer winging, but have buds that want to do nothing but foil assist.

I have a Foil Drive that cost about $6000 US. Then I bought an extra battery for $1200. Not cheap. At first I was disappointed because it's a pain in the ass to setup, tweak, and maintain. I don't like using it for wing assist in light wind because of all the extra weight and having to carry around a remote controller. It's also not that fun to efoil (compared to winging). So I finally succumbed to its original purpose, foil assist in small waves. First of all, it is challenging to efoil this thing in chop when the motor is only 20cm down the mast. Learning the technique for getting up on foil on a 60L board in the waves is another learning process. Then once you do catch a wave, you don't have the wing to balance with and it can get pretty hairy barreling down a wave. Long story short, Foil Driving in waves will kick your ass. It is its own sport, different from winging without a lot of crossover benefit. There are some days when the waves line up and it's magical. Other days I'm caught in a washing machine. One can learn to pump foil with one but pump foiling is another challenging discipline. So for $7000 is it worth it? For me it is. It gets me out on non windy days. Sometimes I pull it out after a wing session when the wind dies but the waves are still good. It gets me off my ass and out in the water. It improves my balance and gives me confidence. But like winging, one needs to pay their dues and put a lot of time and effort into it. Unless you live in Australia with big beautiful glassy swell, you don't just pull the trigger and catch a wave. There is a lot to learn and quite a good workout.
My ultimate goal is to learn how to read bumps and do some downwind runs. Not there yet.

My progression, windsurf, kiting, kitefoil, winging, foildrive, parawing. Rarely wing anymore, it's all about downwind swell riding. Foildrive gets me there in anything up to 15knots, parawing after that. Once you master Foildrive on sub 30lts boards it opens up a huge amount of surf locations not available to the regular surfer.

To add some contrast, I learnt to foil with a foil drive assist and it hugely sped up my learning progress.

Having said that I bought it with the intention of learning the basics and then moving onto the other disciplines, that mindset combined with intentional practice meant that end goal came pretty quickly (9 months or so before I was pretty bored, had got everything out of it I felt I could and sold it)

Since then I have been winging (surf and upwind/downwind) sup surf foil, a little bit of prone, and now parawinging. I actually have to force myself to take a break. I can confidently say every session has been more rewarding and not once have I missed having the trigger to pull on.

I was able to dial my foils/board/wings etc in and have loved less mucking around with batteries/remotes/fear of it breaking down and mostly not having a heavy brick on and draggy motor on my setup.

My general foiling ability "feel" and fitness have also greatly improved.

I believe if you have the option everyone should pretty much learn on an efoil assist of some variety, to clock up that initial muscle memory and "foil time" but once you've got that each of the other foiling disciplines add so much to the mix and the ride with an assist is much more compromised than many are willing to admit.

I bought the Stoke Foil Boost 2 years ago and have used it 5 times. Agree with BWalnut above too heavy just did not like it at all. Can't see myself ever using it again.

I wing in anything above 13 and for non-wind days bought a foldable contractor work platform which I put in about 3 feet of water off the beach and dock start of that with a dock start board. Still learning the craft but can't wait to able to pump around and catch small swell near the beach. Well that's my winter challenge anyway. So far enjoying it and much more fun pumping a dock start board and not having all the weight.

agree with many of the complaints about the weight and overall nuisance of foil assist gear. BUT... it's not about comparing it to winging/kite foiling/etc, it's about being able to do something when there is no wind. At that point those aforementioned negatives are trumped by the ability to still go out and do something. I will say if you don't have swell/waves to play with, it becomes very boring very quickly. to me efoiling in flat water is like standing up in a moving boat.

Everything has its place, if your blessed living close to surf beaches, have suitable docks for dock starting or young/ relatively maybe there is no need for battery power. But many of us don't fall into those categories and that's when battery bower comes into its own.

For me I'm a bay surfer and flat water pumper. When the wind is up we get nice 1-2ft swells running down Moreton Bay here in Brisbane. It's all about upwind/downwind on small 30lts boards, great sessions, lots of bumps to chase. Now we are in the mid winter doldrums so flat water pump sessions, my best is just over a minute but with daily practice I'm hoping to improve. Great cardio workout for daily exercise.

Neither of these options are possible without a battery or two hours of driving. We have over a dozen Foildrive foilers locally, no angst or surfers to bother on the water. I do feel for those close to surf breaks, with the release of the new waist mounted offering the numbers of batteries in the line up will swell as that's were the target market is.