Photo: Kai Lenny // YouTube
Foils are effectively a surfboard with a massive knife attached to the bottom. It’s a fact that you may sometimes forget while gracefully gliding from peak to peak, but you’re still likely to get a harsh reminder every once in a while. That’s exactly what happened to Kai Lenny in his latest YouTube video.
It was an otherwise peaceful session that ended abruptly and violently. After an attempt at one of his trademark backflips, the multi-hyphenate waterman took a fall and received a nasty gash to the chest. Almost immediately, he was retrieved by a ski and taken back to land, where he stopped for a moment to explain what the hell actually happened out there.
“Wow, that escalated quickly,” he said. “I wanted to really land a backflip and I had the perfect section. I threw the backflip and I sort of missed the grab. Usually when you get the grab, it keeps you nice and tight and lower. I landed the flip, but then I didn’t have a tall enough mast, or the wave was just too powerful. It popped me in the air and just foil straight to the chest. That’s a pretty blunt foil, compared to my other ones, so I’m kind of lucky I got away with that.”
