Electric surfboards don’t exactly have the best reputation in surfing circles. Hell, remember the flak WaveJet took when it arrived on the scene? Despite the fact that paddling sucks, e-boards haven’t been widely accepted, unlike e-bikes.
But if I’m being honest and I didn’t care in the slightest about other people’s opinion of me, cruising around effortlessly and catching waves is pretty damn fun. All the good stuff, none of the bad. I suppose, though, that some part of me knows that riding waves isn’t just riding waves, and part of the reason riding those waves is so great is the effort it takes to do it.
“It was fun as hell,” I wrote about the WaveJet experience. “Embarrassing as hell in a regular lineup, to be sure, but also very fun. There is a lot to be said for armlessly paddling back out to the peak like you’re being towed by Pinnochio’s Monstro, staring straight-faced into the eyes of the peasant scum littering the lineup on regular surfboards.”
Electric surfboards have been around for a while, most notably ridden by Garrett McNamara on giant waves. The WaveJet in particular was created because the inventor had a hard time renting out PWCs for tow surfing and thought they could probably just squash the PWC guts into a surfboard. Anyway, Kai Lenny, unlike me, appears to entirely not give a shit about the people who see him riding e-surfboards and calling him a kook or whatever from their keyboard.
Perhaps that’s because Kai knows those keyboard strokers will never be able to do the things he does and he’s interested in trying new things; any new thing that’s related to the water and will help him on his never-ending quest for fun. And recently, he took an electric surfboard out around Maui.
“I tried to find its limits and there was so much more I discovered it could do that I couldn’t have imagined,” he wrote. “It’s not the most traditional surfboard shape but is designed to make waves where there are none. A super cool experience and I’m stoked to gain another perspective on the water.”
