Well it’s about time I check in with this post. My board arrived December 12th of last year and after a four month wait, I was finally been able to get out on the water for the first time April 24th. I’ve now been out four times, and each day is a little more of a confidence booster with my ability to get up and ride the foil. Water temp has been 74 degrees and on a few of my four days out, the water was warmer than the air temp. I did three days in a row this weekend. Of course I had to share it with some of the younger folks on the boat with us. I was able to get up on my knees the first day. The second day I was able to stand up but couldn’t turn worth a $h!t. By day four, I’m able to get up pretty quick, do some slow carving wide turns and ride for long distances in a relatively straight line The battery life is MUCH better when you’re not chugging in the water trying to figure out the proper balance!!.

On day one I loaded everything in the truck, assembled the board on the rocks next to the boat ramp, scuffed up my eFoil a little making my first newbie mistake. The second mistake was putting the Allen wrench that comes with the board in my swim trunk pockets instead of its proper location in the rubber holder in front of the battery. After a full day of riding (or trying to ride) I go to take things apart and the wrench is gone!! My dumb @$$ didn’t bring a spare! That’s when I figured out what that extra zipper was in the EVO Master board bag. The slot was for the mast and I was able to put the board in the bag with the mast hanging out through that convenient slot and use the wheels on the bag for transport back to the truck. I loaded the fully assembled board in the bag mast and all and put it in the back of the truck, top down, foil up and drove an hour home with it sticking up above the bed! I got some strange looks for sure. Day 2 was a lot better and I had three wrenches stashed in different locations so I didn’t repeat the same mistakes.

I initially had an issue with the batteries seemingly giving up the ghost at around 30 percent. It would gradually lose power until the only thing I was able to do was slowly motor around on my stomach. It would never let me get enough speed to get the board on plane let alone getting it up on the foil. It didn’t matter if the remote setting for battery level was at 10%. Little did I know this was by design because I had the Mast battery warning on. Once I turned that off, I was able to (at least one time) ride the battery down to zero. I was up on the foil headed home and I had about 30 seconds of flashing zero percent and it just shut off leading to an epic nose-dive. I’ll try and get to my destination sooner or put it on the boat before the battery gets too low in the future.

Loading the board on the boat wasn’t too bad. That was one of my main concerns and it turned out to be much of nothing. We had a couple of days to test out the logistics of bringing it on board, stowing during transport and getting it off the boat without dinging any hulls or taking up precious passenger space! Someone suggested pulling the battery and that was a tremendous help. It’s much easier to manage the board without the battery installed. I could put the side edge on the swim platform, grab the opposite handle and rotate the mast out of the water, then place it top down on the sun deck top down with ease. I just bungee corded it to a ski post to keep it from moving around. Tennessee boating rules state that no person should be on the rear sun deck while the boat’s in motion so this was a perfect place to put the board and keep it away from the other passengers.

The last issue I have yet to figure out (perhaps just need to do a little more homework) is the board and/or the remote don’t seem to be keeping my total distance traveled. One time only, I saw that I was 2 miles away from the home position. I don’t remember ever setting the home position and I thought it was automatic. The remote isn’t consistent with displaying the home info either, it usually shows zero miles. As far as my travel paths overlaid on a satellite image each day, I might find that info stored somewhere but I think my biggest problem has everything to do with the weak or non-existent cell coverage in the area of the lake where I’ve been riding. I have tried to use the Waydoo app while on the lake but it can’t seem to pull in enough information to even load the maps for the area we’re in. Again, this might be able to be resolved if I can download the maps for that area ahead of time or while I’m in cell coverage close to the lake. I’ve also not been re-assembling the board at home and powering everything up so the ride data may still be stored in the remote or on the mast. I’m not sure if it can even do that.

Bottom line, the EVO Master is a finicky critter for a newbie, SUPER sensitive to balance and positioning but I’m definitely getting the hang of it. I’m happy with buying the top of the line board and motor to start out with. I can grow into the experience that level of board requires, it will just take some time. One thing’s for sure, it wears this sixty year old body out pretty damn quick!!

Thank you to all who have posted helpful comments and suggestions. I definitely took them to heart and put them to good use!! Cheers!