The NSW Government has asked us to demonstrate, through research, that efoils pose no significant risk to the marine environment. But an efoil is a watercraft, and the same things decide its risk as any other vessel’s: speed, weight, what sits under the water, how well the rider can see and what it leaves behind. On every one, an efoil matches or beats the craft already used in Cape Byron Marine Park. We’ve already completed a six-year trial at Byron Bay with no impacts or issues reported to us. Now we’re asking for a further monitored trial at Belongil, in an area covering only about a third of one per cent of the park.
0
marine mammals hit in more than 83,000 hours on the water, reported by the 433 riders who signed
6 years
of riding under a trial permit at Byron Bay, over many thousands of kilometres, with no harm to wildlife ever reported to us
300 m
the distance NSW law already requires an efoil to keep from any whale or dolphin, up to six times what a boat must keep
40×
less CO₂ than a jet ski, hour for hour, on grid power. On home solar, none at all.
Around 40,000 efoils have been sold worldwide. As far as we know, none has ever been reported hitting a marine mammal or injuring a swimmer, surfer or other member of the public.
Energy in a collision
How hard something hits depends on its weight and its speed. An efoil and its rider weigh about 110 kg and usually travel at 20 to 25 km/h. That puts an efoil in the same league as a surfboard, kite foil or windsurfer. A small boat at cruising speed carries more than 30 times the energy, a boat towing a wakeboarder about 50 times, and a loaded dive boat about 100 times.
Yet the marine park’s rules put efoils in the same category as jet skis. Lifeguards still use jet skis in the park, the marine park’s own staff patrol in boats, and dive boats take divers out to Julian Rocks. Each carries more than 25 times the energy of an efoil.
Energy at usual riding speed
Kilojoules, craft and rider together
Kinetic energy is ½ × mass × speed², using typical weights with an 80 kg rider and usual speeds. Every craft here can go faster.
Under the water
People who haven’t seen an efoil up close often picture a blade under the board. What’s really there is a foil shaped like an aircraft wing, with the propeller tucked in behind the mast.
The mast and wings meet the water with a smooth, rounded edge, like an aircraft wing. Surfboard fins are thinner and much sharper, especially the side fins on a three-fin board, which are flat on one side.
The small propeller is at the back of the motor, behind the mast and front wing, well below the surface. Anything in the board’s path meets the rounded wing and mast first. Power cuts the moment the rider lets go of the throttle or falls off. A propeller guard is available, and Fliteboard also makes a fully shielded jet with no exposed blades.
Once it’s up on the foil, the board flies above the surface. There’s no hull, no wake and nothing dragging.
By comparison, a boat’s propeller is larger, sits behind a heavy hull and turns out of the skipper’s sight.
Compared with other foils
Kite, wing and windsurf foils already share the park under sensible rules, and they should. An efoil rides on the same kind of foil. To a marine animal there’s no difference, except that it can hear an efoil coming. And on an efoil, the rider sets the speed.
| Compare | Efoil | Wing foil | Kite foil | Windsurfer | Surf foil |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Powered by | Battery and electric motor | Wind, in a hand-held wing | Wind, in a kite on lines | Wind, in a sail | Waves |
| Speed set by | The rider’s thumb | The wind | The wind | The wind | The wave |
| Speed can be capped and kept to a zone | Yes, by Fliteboard’s software | No | No | No | No |
| Makes a sound animals can hear | Yes, a soft electric hum | No, silent | No, silent | No, silent | No, silent |
| Rider’s view ahead | Clear, with nothing in front of the rider | Partly blocked by the wing | Shared with watching the kite | Partly blocked by the sail | Focused on the wave |
| Rides in breaking surf | No need to | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Yes. It needs the surf zone, so it’s usually close to surfers and other water users |
Visibility
The surest way to avoid an animal is to see it early. An efoil rider stands on a board flying above the surface, with no wake or spray, and no sail, wing or kite in the way.
Wing and kite foilers ride as high as an efoil, but they’re holding a wing or flying a kite while they do.
How high the rider’s eyes are above the water
Metres, approximate, for an adult
Emissions
Petrol boats, including boats towing wakeboarders, already use the park. An efoil runs on a battery. Charged from solar panels at home, an hour on the water produces no CO₂, something no petrol boat can match. Even on grid power it’s a fraction of a boat’s emissions, and none of it goes into the water.
CO₂ per hour on the water
Kilograms
2,500 tonnes
The CO₂ our riders’ 83,960 hours would have produced on jet skis, from about 1.1 million litres of petrol. On efoils it’s about 2% of that from grid power, and none from solar.
60,000 tonnes
The CO₂ a year if the world’s efoils were jet skis. Around 40,000 have been sold. At 50 hours a year each, that’s 2 million hours and about 26 million litres of petrol.
Older two-stroke outboards can release up to 25–30% of their fuel unburned.
No wash eroding riverbanks and shorelines. NSW has identified waterways damaged by high-wash boating. Marine protection organisations have approached Fliteboard about using its boards for their projects instead of boats.
Electric motors are much quieter than petrol engines. One study measured an electric outboard up to 43 dB quieter, about 20,000 times less sound energy.
Efoils come out of the water after every ride, so there’s no toxic antifouling paint and no anchor or mooring on the seabed.
Fliteboard won an international Green Product Award in 2022 for its contribution to cleaner transport.
A fair test
The Department wants riders to prove a negative. It has asked for “evidence to demonstrate that there are not significant environmental risks” from efoils, and for riders to “undertake or collate scientific research”. No surfboard, kayak or boat has been asked to pass that test. Efoils already have six years of riding in this park under a trial permit, with no harm to wildlife ever reported to us.
The ban comes from a lack of clear definitions, which differ between NSW departments and between states. The park’s 2006 rules prohibit personal watercraft, and an old definition counts an efoil as one. The Department itself says hydrofoils “did not exist and were not considered” when those rules were made. Transport for NSW registers efoils over 4 kW as “a vessel, not a personal watercraft”, and has exempted efoils from several jet ski rules “given the lower risks”. Victoria classes efoils as powerboats, and Queensland treats them like surfboards. Sorting out these definitions is the government’s job, not a research project for riders. If the rules don’t allow a permit, the Ministers responsible can change them.
Strike risk comes from size and speed. Any craft that moves can hit an animal, the way a bike can hit a bird. Australia’s national strategy on vessel strike lists 109 reported collisions with whales in Australian waters between 1840 and 2015, from every kind of vessel. Most whales seriously hurt or killed were hit by vessels doing more than 14 knots, and the worst cases involved vessels over 80 m long. An efoil is usually ridden below that speed, and it’s less than 2 m long.
Every other craft is managed with rules. Speed limits, approach distances and zones apply to everything on the water. Cape Byron Marine Park already lets jet skis in under permit for surf lifesaving and organised events, and NSW National Parks licenses efoil tours in Ku-ring-gai Chase. Riders are happy to help develop rules for efoils, as local kitesurfers did. They’ll also help teach and police them, and keep to a defined area.
The precautionary principle doesn’t support a ban. As NSW courts apply it, it needs a threat of serious or irreversible damage, and the response must be proportionate. No such threat has been shown for efoils, and banning them along all 37 km of the park while boats keep using it isn’t proportionate.
A monitored trial at Belongil would give the Department the local evidence it says it needs.