It’s finally come to fruition. For years it’s been generally accepted that one day, we’re going to be kiting around in mid air, tethered to a foil underwater. It might even be the new norm when it comes to speed sailing.

Damien Leroy and his mates have worked out how to do it, with what looks like a bent bit of plywood and an old Crossbow, but what’s the appeal?

A few months ago we saw some video’s of some kids in QLD tethering themselves to a mate on bits of 20m line. One kite pulls two kiters using the line between them, and then once they’re up and running the guy with the kite sends it and proceeds to float along in mid air. It’s a fun trick but it puts an enormous amount of strain on the flying kiteboarder's ribs due to the harness doing its best to squish you from each side. It also loads up the handle pass leash, and has all kinds of potential for things to get ugly.

But when it works, man it’s a good feeling. You think a hydrofoil is quiet? Try sailing along 10m high for a few minutes at a time. Better yet, do it without having to wrangle a friend to hold you down.

How it works, is by using a hydrofoil that skims just under the waters surface, providing a moving anchor point that follows you around. It’s not clear whether it’s steerable, but by some simple hydrodynamic trickery it wouldn’t be hard to set the upwind angle to a lazy 90 degrees, or even set it up to break free from the water at a certain loading or speed.

Expect to see a lot more of this type of thing in the future once these guys work out how to do it properly.

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