At a Thursday farmers’ market in Incline Village, Nev., among the produce and beef jerky tents, a few wide and sturdy red boards are propped up on foils. A sign reading “Lake & Wake Adventures: eFoil Rentals” headlines a booth and a group of people is gathered around owner Matt Smith as he describes how the red boards, called eFoils, work.
The next morning, less than 24 hours after we met, Smith and I are out at Sandy Beach in Tahoe Vista getting ready to go out on the water. Smith is just two weeks into running this new venture and has already taken a handful of people out.
“In this sport, everyone’s a beginner. My goal is that within a 45-minute lesson you’re able to get up and above the water.” –Matt Smith
Many have seen the Fourth of July video of Mark Zuckerberg hyrdofoiling while carrying an American flag on Lake Tahoe. Hydrofoiling in Tahoe has been around for a couple of years and the foiling experience is growing in popularity. However, hydrofoiling requires the use of an external force to generate momentum, such as the wake of a boat or a wing or kite powered by the wind, to get the foil up and out of the water. Once that happens, it’s like floating or soaring. My friend Trent Carter once said, “It’s like being on a magic carpet.” The feeling is blissful and somewhat indescribable, only relayed through the expression on the face of the person doing it.
Watch Matt Smith demonstrate an efoil
Kayla Anderson
Efoiling is different in the sense that you don’t need a boat or an outside source to get the speed you need to propel above the water and stay there. The term stands for electric-powered foil board, which means that an efoil doesn’t take oil or gas to run; it’s powered by an electric battery, like a Tesla or ebike is. Homewood High & Dry Marina recently installed a charging station for Lift efoil boards. The battery sits inside the board and a person operates it using a handheld remote.
Smith has been interested in the efoil since March but found that there was a bit of a barrier to entry in trying one out in Tahoe at the time. In early June, Smith and his girlfriend went down to Mexico and saw someone using an efoil in the ocean. They tracked down the rider, tried it themselves and instantly became hooked. When they returned from their trip, Smith invested in three eFoil boards and launched Lake & Wake Adventures.
“In this sport, everyone’s a beginner,” Smith says. “My goal is that within a 45-minute lesson you’re able to get up and above the water.”
On average, Smith says it takes an adult about 10 minutes to stand up on the board, navigate through the water, turn and get out and above the water. Kids can generally get up within 5 minutes.
“When you’re going on the water, it’s like anything you’ve been on before, such as a wakeboard or wakesurf board, but once you leave the water then you can carve. It’s smooth and it doesn’t matter what the conditions are,” Smith says.
After about 10 minutes in the water, I find that I am up and gliding above Big Blue, oblivious to any boat chop or waves that come my way. The feeling is surreal.
“I try to make it as easy as I can to get people above the water. I want to be the presence of eFoil rentals and share this experience with as many people as I can,” he says. “I love taking people out of their comfort level and give them an experience that they’d never have otherwise. I’m trying to have as much fun as I can out here and I want other people to feel the same way.”
Lake & Wake Adventures rents eFoils at North Tahoe Beach in Kings Beach through October and will likely be in Nevada Beach in South Lake Tahoe and somewhere on the North Shore next summer. | (530) 651-3645, lakeandwaketahoe.com
