Before You Buy — Taking the Leap Into Pumpfoiling and Freefoiling

by Todd Reichert

If you're thinking about getting into this sport — or wondering if the Beta is the right foil for you — this post will give you the honest, no-hype perspective to help you decide.

The Mindset

This is human-powered flight — not metaphorically, but literally. You're lifting your entire body out of the water using nothing but your legs. What makes this sport special isn’t just the sensation of flight — it’s the mindset and the challenge. The entire culture is built around doing hard things. You fall, you figure it out, you try again — and when it finally clicks, it feels like unlocking a superpower.

Is This Sport for You?

Pumpfoiling is absolutely within reach for anyone in good health, regardless of age, but making progress requires committing to 3-5 sessions per week, and getting to your first 1-minute flight might take 1000 attempts or more. If you're the type of person that likes learning difficult skills — you’re in the right place. Most people who get into the sport are aiming for flights between 1 and 5 minutes — and that’s an awesome goal. Hitting those durations is an incredibly rewarding challenge that is the basis of growing global community — passionate riders gathering on docks, doing short laps, encouraging each other to fall, try again, and push themselves farther.

If your dream is freefoiling — flying for 10+ minutes and using your foil to explore the open water — you'll need to build strong aerobic fitness and refined technique. To give you a benchmark: the Beta Freefoil, when flown efficiently by a 75kg rider, demands a similar level of exertion to producing 210 watts on a bicycle (add or subtract ~3.5 watts per kg of body weight). If you can learn to fly, and build up to 10 minutes of endurance, you've already overcome the hardest part, and launching from rocks and beaches becomes a natural and exciting next step.

What You’ll Need

A dock with deep enough clearance, or a beach where you can bring your own launch platform.
A wetsuit, helmet and life jacket — especially early on when you're crashing a lot.
A foil — This is the expensive part. A new setup can cost anywhere between $1500 and $6000 USD.

Should You Buy a Beta?

In pumpfoiling and freefoiling, the efficiency of the foil has a big impact on what you can do. For many people the power required to fly is near their anaerobic threshold, where a 10% gain in efficiency leads to a 2x gain in flight endurance. The Beta Freefoil is purpose-built for long endurance flight, and in this category, it is simply unmatched. It works great for both beginners and experts alike. For the beginner, the long wingspan can make roll control more difficult, but it also slows down the dynamics and greatly increases the glide, making it easier to learn than many other foils (read easier, not easy!). For the expert, it unlocks long endurance exploration at the frontier of the sport.

The are two reasons you wouldn't want to buy a Beta: cost and cross-discipline foiling.

Cost: The Beta Freefoil is build without compromise and is the most expensive foil on the market. If you're looking for something cheaper there are lots of good alternatives that can get you into this incredible sport. If want something that can pump, but also ride some waves, you'll want something in the 1.2-1.4m span range like in Wake Thief's 2024 foil re v iew video. If you're looking for pure endurance, then you'll want something that's 1.7m+.
Cross-discipline: The Beta Freefoil is purpose built for freefoiling and isn't your best tool for surfing waves, downwinding, wing foiling, or kite foiling. If you want to do it all with one foil then you'll want a setup with interchangeable wings, masts and tails tuned for each discipline.

What to Expect When Switching Over to Beta

If you already foil, switching over to a Beta will feel strange at first, and it will take a number of sessions before you can start to unlock it's potential. The two most prominent differences are:

Spiral dive: Any foil with an ultra-long wingspan will exhibit spiral dive. This is where the foil gets deeper and deeper into a turn and you can't get out of it. It’s the biggest adjustment when switching to a longer wingspan — but once you learn to step your foot outward at the start of a turn, it becomes second nature, just a different way to steer.
Low and slow: in contrast to other foils, Beta requires the least amount of effort when you're flying low to the water, instead of high up on the mast. In addition, you'll be able to fly a lot slower than you think you can with a 2100cm^2 foil, and doing so will further reduce the required effort.

Overall, you can expect a transition period, but once you get used to it, it will be hard to go back from.

Still Unsure?

Have a look through the Training Guide. It guide will walk you through every step — from your first dock start to your first exploration mission. By the end, you'll know exactly what this sport takes, and whether it's for you.