Lift Foils

• Category: electric hydrofoil boards, known as eFoils
• Founded: Puerto Rico, early 2010s, by Nick Leason and Mike Leason
• Based: Isabela, Puerto Rico, where the factory and test water also sit
• First commercial eFoil: 2018, the first product of its kind sold to the public
• Ownership: privately held and family run
• Current range: LIFT5 in 4'4 Pro, 4'9 Sport, Laird 5'2 and 5'4 Cruiser
• Price: USD 14,999 for a complete 4'9 Sport or 5'4 Cruiser setup, liftfoils.com, July 2026
• Battery: Gen5 full range, 2.2 kWh, rated up to 90 minutes, 80 percent charge in about an hour
• Spare battery: USD 3,880
• Setup weight: 30.6 kg for the 4'9 Sport, 32.0 kg for the 5'4 Cruiser
• Maximum rider weight: 100 kg on most boards, 113 kg on the 5'4 Cruiser
• Battery warranty: two years or 600 charge cycles, whichever comes first

A Puerto Rican workshop that started the category

Lift Foils began in Puerto Rico in the early 2010s as a small hydrofoil business run by Nick Leason and his brother Mike, building surf and kite foils by hand. Putting a motor and a battery into a foil board took years to reach a state the family was willing to sell. Lift launched the first commercial eFoil in 2018 and created the category. It is still privately held and family run, with headquarters, factory and test water all at Isabela on the north-west coast of the island.

The engineering problem was never the foil. Surf foils were well understood by then. What had to be solved was fitting a lithium battery of useful size inside a board a person stands on, sealing it against warm salt water, and controlling the motor from a handheld unit that survives being dropped in the sea. Lift's answer was a sealed drop-in pack and a wireless controller, and that architecture has not changed since. Every competitor that followed built a version of it.

The LIFT5 range, board by board

The current generation is the LIFT5, sold in four boards that differ mainly in volume and width. The 5'4 Cruiser is the most forgiving at 83 litres and 70 cm across, and carries a rider up to 113 kg. The 4'9 Sport, 67 litres and 64 cm, is the best seller and the board most dealers put a first-timer on. The 4'4 Pro drops to 55 litres for riders who already foil, and the Laird 5'2 is a narrow 64 litre board. All four take the same battery, mast and wings.

The hardware behind the shape matters more than the shape. Every LIFT5 arrives with the Gen5 full range battery, a 28 or 32 inch carbon mast, two wings, the Elite hand controller, a charger and bags. Propulsion is an enclosed jet unit at the foot of the mast, which does away with the exposed propeller older eFoils carried. Assembly is tool free, so a guest can build the board on a swim platform in minutes. Changing the front wing alters the ride more than changing the board.

Lift invented the eFoil in 2018 and has spent every year since defending the top of a category it created.

What it is actually like to ride

A first session is spent on the knees. A trigger on the hand controller feeds power to the motor, and lifting a 30 kg board clear of the surface takes a steady throttle hand and a tolerance for falling off. Most people get short flights inside a lesson or two, then spend a season learning to turn without touching down. Once the board is flying it is close to silent, which is what surprises guests. No wake, no exhaust and nothing audible from the aft deck.

The 90 minute rating on the Gen5 pack is a ceiling and not an average. A heavy rider on a small wing at full throttle will see well under an hour, and a light rider cruising will beat the number. Lift does not publish a top speed. Flat or lightly rippled water is where a foil is best, and the chop that builds inside a busy anchorage by midday makes the ride hard work. Cold water shortens both the battery and the rider.

Getting it aboard and stowing it

A complete LIFT5 weighs between 30.6 kg and 32.0 kg depending on the board, and never has to be lifted as one piece. The board alone is 9.5 kg, the Gen5 battery about 13.8 kg, and the mast, propulsion unit and wings come apart by hand. No crane, no davit and no lifting plan, which is why eFoils appear on 30 metre yachts as readily as on 90 metre ones. The board bag is the dimension to check. A 5'4 Cruiser needs a locker or rack of at least 1.7 m clear.

The battery dictates where the toy can live, and the carbon wings dictate how it is handled. Foil wings are thin, stiff and genuinely sharp, which is why they ship in padded bags and why experienced crew carry them separately. Salt is the other enemy. The mast joint and the jet unit want a fresh water rinse after every use, and a board left wet in a hot garage for a fortnight will show it.

The charging rule that changed in December 2025

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency published MGN 681 (M) Amendment 1 on 19 December 2025, replacing the original note of June 2023 and sitting under Part A Chapter 14 of the Red Ensign Group Yacht Code. It governs fire safety, storage and charging of small electrically powered craft aboard yachts, covering eFoils, electric jet skis and electric tenders. Spare or removed batteries above 100 Wh must be stowed in cabinets meeting specified European standards. A Gen5 pack is 2.2 kWh, twenty times over the threshold and squarely inside scope.

From 1 January 2027 any new battery storage or charging container fitted to a UK-registered yacht must carry UK type approval from a nominated body. Equipment already aboard before that date may stay in service. Amendment 1 also asks for crew training on charging, damage identification, quarantine of a suspect pack and the warning signs of thermal runaway, with a named person responsible. For an owner under a Red Ensign Group flag, a certified charging locker is now a specification line.

What it costs to buy and to keep

A complete 4'9 Sport or 5'4 Cruiser lists at USD 14,999 as of July 2026, which includes the board, battery, mast, propulsion, both wings, controller, charger and bags. That is the price of one board and one battery, and one battery is not enough for a yacht. A spare Gen5 pack is USD 3,880, so an owner who wants guests foiling continuously through an afternoon is looking at USD 22,000 to USD 27,000 for a board and two or three packs.

The running cost is the battery. Lift warrants the pack for two years or 600 charge cycles, whichever comes first, so it is a wear item with a published life and a four figure replacement price. The board carries a one year warranty extendable to three under Lift's protection plan. Wings, mast hardware and seals are the other consumables. Nothing here is expensive against the cost of the yacht.

Service, parts and the August problem

Lift lists more than 300 affiliated demo locations worldwide, but for a yacht the practical route is a specialist supplier who already works with crew. Ocean Premium runs a Lift rental and support fleet along the French and Italian Riviera, Sardinia, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Palma, Ibiza and the Caribbean, and puts boards aboard weekly. That is why a board built in Puerto Rico is easier to keep running in the Mediterranean than the delivery address suggests. A damaged board or a bent mast is usually dealt with locally inside a week.

A failed battery is a different matter. A loose lithium battery moving by air is dangerous goods under UN3480, restricted to cargo aircraft only and capped at 30 percent state of charge under IATA rules. A replacement pack therefore does not arrive overnight in Bonifacio in the second week of August. Owners who use eFoils heavily buy the spare at the same time as the board and treat air freight as the fallback. The alternative is renting a board locally for the rest of the trip.

Lift against Fliteboard and the rest

The main rival is Fliteboard, founded in Byron Bay in 2016 and acquired by Brunswick Corporation in September 2023, where it sits inside Mercury Marine. Fliteboard offers a wider ladder of prices, including inflatable Air models, and has a large network of dealers and Fliteschools across Europe. Audi's e-tron foil and the French builder Takuma occupy the same premium band, and Waydoo undercuts all of them. The category is crowded in a way it was not five years ago.

Lift wins on build quality and on being the reference that dealers measure everything else against. It loses on entry price and, in parts of Europe, on dealer density against a rival backed by the largest marine group in the world. On the water the two are close enough that a rider who learns on one is comfortable on the other within an afternoon. For most owners the deciding question is which brand has a service point near the water the yacht will spend August in.

Training, rules and what goes wrong

No licence is required to ride an eFoil in most jurisdictions, but local rules vary and they bite. Coastal municipalities across the Mediterranean restrict powered craft near swimming beaches and inside harbour limits, and a board at 30 km/h counts as a powered craft. Every credible operator puts riders in a helmet and impact vest. The injuries come from the wings and the mast, which are carbon and hard, and from other boats in a crowded anchorage.

On a commercially registered yacht the eFoil sits inside the vessel's safety management arrangements alongside the tenders, so a documented guest briefing and a crew member watching the water are normal practice. Amendment 1 to MGN 681 adds a training expectation on the battery side of the same equipment. An owner buying one board for private use can skip most of this. An owner buying four for a charter yacht is buying a small operation.

Who it is for: Owners who want the reference eFoil and have crew willing to manage lithium batteries properly, and who are not shopping on price.