Fliteboard: How to surf without waves

You’ve heard of e-scooters and e-bikes, but how about an e-surfboard? Andy Martin speaks to the man behind Fliteboard

When David Trewern started working on the Fliteboard, it was more of a hobby than a business (Fliteboard)

An old friend of mine described it as “a super-ultimate feeling”. I can’t do better than that (and thank you Rusty Miller) in trying to describe the sensation of riding a Fliteboard. You’ve seen, perhaps tried out, an e-bike, an e-scooter, an e-skateboard: but if you want the super ultimate you’re going to have to try out an e-surfboard, as dreamed up by David Trewern.

In 2016, Trewern went to a kitefoil race in Brisbane. Alas, there was no wind.

The whole contest was becalmed, to the immense frustration of all. Then Trewern had his bright idea. “What about if we put a motor on the back of one of these?” he said. A motorised kiteboard? Fellow kitesurfers laughed at the idea. But Trewern vowed to get the job done that very day and went running around searching for a small motor.

It only took him a year to find the right equipment and stick it all together and come up with a working prototype. “It almost feels impossible,” he says, down the line from Byron Bay, the hip surfing mecca of New South Wales. “Like you’re tapping into a magic physics. Like you’ve opened the door to another dimension.”

Trewern was born in Sydney, but he learned to surf and windsurf in the small coastal town of Merimbula. When he turned up at primary school all the other kids were already advanced surfers. “It was hard to catch up, so I adopted windsurfing.” That set him on a path – doing progressively more extreme watersports. “I was interested in anything new and different.”

He went into kitesurfing, then kitesurfing with a hydrofoil, and finally kitefoil racing.

“Short of the America’s Cup boats,” he says, “it’s the fastest vehicle around a course.”

Trewern set the speed record in 2005 – 44.9kph over 500m. But he still wasn’t satisfied. “I became a tinkerer – I was always customising my board.”

The foil is like an underwater aeroplane, but because water is 800 times denser than air the foil can be 800 times smaller than a plane wing

By way of a day job, he was doing graphic design, then web design. In 1996 – when he was 23 – his first big client was Mercedes Benz. “No one had a website then. Everyone wanted one.” In a few years he had the biggest agency in Australia (DT, now AKQA). And he took time out to set up a private college too. By 2015 he was feeling burned out and took off for Byron Bay, where he still practises yoga and meditation.

“I bought a house on the beach. It’s only five metres from the water – it’s more like being on a boat.” He had his surfboard and his kite and he spent the next six months enjoying himself. “Then I got bored – I’ve always been a perfectionist and a workaholic.”

When he started working on the Fliteboard, it was more of a hobby than a business. “Initially, I thought it would be a niche of a niche. But then people started buying it who weren’t even into watersports.” Trewern posted a drone video of him riding a Fliteboard on Facebook. It got 2 million views and thousands of messages. He was riding a wave of popular demand.

Fliteboard wasn’t a hobby any more. It was his young son Leo who came up with the name. “I thought – that’s it!” Now Trewern has customers all round the world, from Google guys to Ferrari to Laird Hamilton in Hawaii. “Anyone can do it,” he says, “but it takes a bit of courage. You’ve got to go slowly to start.” He has personally taught some 500 people to Fliteboard. “You’re going to fall off – a lot.”

‘You’re going to fall off – a lot,’ says Trewern about learning to Fliteboard (Andy Martin)

He was right about that. In fact, my two sons were way faster at picking it up than I was (and undoubtedly looked cooler too). It is somewhere between surfing and sailing and flying.

The foil is like an underwater aeroplane, but because water is 800 times denser than air the foil can be 800 times smaller than a plane wing.

I have to give a big shout-out to Tris Best at the UK’s first Fliteschool, the Official Test Centre (https://otc-watersports.com), based at the National Sailing Academy in Portland, Dorset, who got us all up and riding. He showed us how it was done, but then added: “You have to feel it rather than think about it. So try and forget everything I’ve told you.” He got me to look up instead of looking down at my feet. I am also grateful to him for equipping me with an impact vest (I’ve never come across one of them before, but I learned a lot about its utility).

Tris Best learned to windsurf in Rhosneigr in Anglesey and joined Windsurf Magazine’s test team while studying industrial design at Loughborough, then became features editor before setting up a school in El Médano, Tenerife. He was recruited to launch the school at Portland in 2009 and teaches everything. And he recently provided back-up on the first Fliteboard crossing of the Channel, from Cap Gris Nez to Folkestone (by Rob and Morgan Wylie in 1hr 44 minutes, all on one battery charge). “Foiling is the most exciting phenomenon to come into all watersports for as long as I can remember,” he says. “We’re lucky that Portland Harbour is tailor-made for it.”

Apparently, Chris Hemsworth found it harder to learn than his wife. So on that Sunday in August I was right up there with Chris Hemsworth. The big difference with surfing is that you don’t have to put in any effort. Let the Fliteboard do all the work for you. If you over-exert yourself you’ll only wipeout. When you get up to around 20kph the board magically rises up out of the water on the foil and it’s like you’re riding a magic carpet.

Fliteboard gives you wings. And you don’t need wind or waves. “It’s harder and more brutal than it looks,” as one of my sons said. “But totally euphoric in a rollercoaster sort of way when you get going.”

@andymartinink