Jason Maris Film & Photography Blog

Last month, Brad Kaye and I had the pleasure of spending a few days on Lake Powell in Utah with some of hydrofoiling’s greatest competitors.  It was a great experience and being out of the city and sleeping under the stars and actually being able to see the expanse of space above was something I’ll never forget.  If you haven’t heard of hydrofoiling, here’s the basic concept; it’s a contraption that combines water-skiing, wakeboarding and something unique all to itself – the hydrofoil.  Basically, the rider sits in a seat on a small board (similar to a wakeboard).  Affixed to the underside of the board is a long, thin, piece of stainless steel called a ‘T-bar’, and connected to the bottom of that is a pair of fin-like sheets of aluminum called the ‘foil’ or ‘front blade’.  What happens is, as the the rider is pulled along by a speedboat and rope, not unlike water-skiing / wakeboarding, the board will be raised out of the water – sometimes with only the ‘foil’ skimming across the top!  From here the rider, using their core abdominal strength, can do an assortment of tricks, from simple jumps to horizontal spins and multiple vertical flips.  It’s pretty wild.  In the following video you will see some of the sports finest Air Chair riders in Bryan Schumacher, Tyler Narans , Torey Narans, Ben Ferney, Al Lewin, Landon Hill, Jeff Lowe, Heinrich Hoerth and Adam Dietrich.  Enjoy!