There are no limits to foil pumping. Increasingly present on lakes, this board that requires neither wind nor waves has just made its debut in a canyon…
Text: Patricia Oudit
September 2022, Gorges de l’Areuse (canton of Neuchâtel): a small crowd has gathered on the bridge overlooking Saut de Braut. Down below, Benjamin Friant and his one-of-a-kind foil scooter are putting on a show, trying their hand at riding a river wedged between two walls. This inhospitable spot had been spotted a few days earlier on the Internet by Lucerne’s Kilian Braun, a no-limit foil pumping expert.
After carrying his 10 kilos of equipment for half an hour along the narrow, slippery paths that run the length of the gorge, he first tried to identify rock-free zones to leave enough space for the foil. Not an easy task when the water is only 60 cm deep in places! Benjamin seemed skeptical, but Kilian likes a challenge and is not one to be impressed by three rocks. He launches the first run, jumps straight onto his board and progresses a few meters Skippy the kangaroo or Shaddock style, depending on the situation, towards the waterfall, stopping short before hitting the cliff and then coming up chilled despite his thick wetsuit. “Pummeling a lake is very easy once you’ve mastered it, even if it’s still fun and cool,” says Kilian. “With this challenge, I wanted to show that you can practice this sport anywhere! That this sport has a bright future ahead of it, even if it won’t be as successful as Stand Up Paddle, because it’s less accessible to the general public.
Foiling gang
The future of this discipline, which allows you to surf on a lake without wind or waves, looks very promising indeed. After all, the lake doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got the pontoon. “In Switzerland, we don’t have the ocean next door, so knowing that you can foil-surf almost every day just by leaning on your board, that totally fascinated me!” explains Sarah Spalinger, who discovered the discipline two years ago in Zurich in the company of the Indiana Foiling Brigade collective led by Steeve Fleury. “Once you’ve got enough speed to induce movement, progress is pretty rapid. When the foil is at the top, we give it the impulse, when it’s at the bottom, we lighten it and let it rise on its own. The hardest part is getting started: I made 300 attempts before achieving my first start from the top of a pontoon that’s a little higher than average, which helps at first. Despite this basic difficulty, Sarah can attest to the fact that more and more people are taking up this discipline, which does not require a surfing background.
“There are people who don’t know us yet and ask us if we have a motor! And those who are surprised to see my comrades attempting tricks. But it’s an increasingly common sight on our lakes.
As for Kilian Braun, he plans to repeat the canyon experience. “There will be other missions like this with my friend Benjamin Friant, but I prefer to keep it a secret. To be able to scout upstream with peace of mind, because riding in these places is not for everyone, you need to have a hell of a lot of control, otherwise it can be dangerous, if not outright forbidden…”. In the meantime, the Lucerne native is training for the beach start. “It’s not easy and it’s super tricky, because you risk breaking the foil!” concludes the foil-pumper-tester.