Red Letter Day: No Rope, No Problem

The mission was simple enough: to go out and “borrow” wake from passing boats while enjoying a little Foil Drive time in between. Guenther Oka had just the crew for the job…

RIDER & WORDS Guenther Oka

PHOTOS Tyler Soden

LOCATION Orlando, Florida

DATE Friday, July 25th, 2025

What can I say? It was another perfect summer day in Orlando, Florida. Not a breath of wind on the lake, and the sun was shining. You could call it a typical day on the water, but the mission I had been assigned from Foil Drive was definitely different. The task was to hit the lake and use my wake boat as little as possible. So how were we supposed to get waves? By hijacking the waves of passing surf boats while motoring around on the Foil Drive.

I loved the idea of the mission and got a crew together to find the busiest lake in Orlando. My first pick was my wife, Meagan Oka. She and I have been Foil Driving in the ocean, and she’s become quite fluent on it. She’s been foiling behind the boat for the past few years, and Foil Drive has been a fun addition to the quiver for her.

Next up was Luca Kidd, a fellow professional wakeboarder who caught the foil bug early and has been putting his unique flair on slicing and dicing the boat wave. Strap a Foil Drive to his mast and he becomes unstoppable!

And last but not least was Neil Swartz, a local in the East Coast Florida foil scene and an early advocate for Foil Drive. I wanted to have Neil out to showcase just how versatile the Foil Drive is, and that it can help bridge the gap between ocean and wake.

Now typically, we try to avoid the crowd and find calm water on a quiet lake. But on this session, we were trying to maximize our ride time without burning our own boat gas. It was a super exciting mission because there was no guarantee other riders would be out. You’d think that with conditions this good it would be a no-brainer, but we still held our breath as we turned into the surf cove on Lake Butler.

Sure enough, there was a local ripper taking their morning surf laps up and down the lake. We scrambled to get the batteries in place and wings on the foil, and the next thing we knew we were up and flying. Neil and I jumped on the back waves and started carving away.

There’s nothing like the silent ride of a foil, with just the mast trickling through the water. It was fun to see the confusion on the wake surfer’s face when they fell and we gave them a wave as we passed by on foil, continuing to motor around until they got back up and riding. I think they were stoked that their wave was being put to good use, and that they had some non-intrusive company with them on the shred.

We sessioned back and forth for a while before spotting another boat cruising out in the middle of the lake. Luca was itching to get out there, and he had the setup for the occasion. Our 1100 Stratus Mid Aspect and a custom mid length board to give him plenty of float on the smallest of waves. The surfer had surfed a good mile around the lake before they came our way, and they kept cruising as they turned by us.

Luca jumped in the water and was quickly on their 10th roller. However, a breach took Luca down but he was quickly back on his feet, and this time he motored to the 20th roller!

It was insane to see him so far back, riding the tiniest of bumps but having a blast, and knowing he had the Foil Drive to assist him back into the wave if he needed it. As the rider surfed back to their dock on the lake, Luca kicked out and motored back over to us, grinning from ear to ear.

We decided to take a breather from hijacking waves and focus on the eFoil element of the Foil Drive. There’s this cool channel that sits under a forest of cypress trees and tall grasses, connecting two of the lakes we were on. Meagan was keen to jump in the water and get some sick photos while eFoiling through the cypress trees; it’s a zone that you’d never be able to ride through, and it would be a real leg-burner to pump through. Instead, she was able to cruise through it with ease on the Foil Drive.

As the day progressed and the sun got lower, we were amped on the session we’d had so far. We had hijacked multiple boats’ waves and decided not to leave a killer sunset up to chance. We filled up my Axis T250 with some weight, got our photographer in the water, and went to town drawing up the perfect wave for hacking and carving.

It was pretty funny to jump into the water without the rope and not see the boat stop for you when you fell. All those little things that we get so used to on the lake totally changed for this session. We spent the last bit of the afternoon trying to breach and carve as hard as we could to get the fun images you see in this spread.

As we idled in at the end of the day, we were pumped at how capable our foiling felt, even with the battery pack and motor pod attached down below. We were also surprised at how generous the wake session was on the battery. Since you spend so much time on foil and cruising on the wave, we were able to stretch our battery life quite far.

It also went to show that you could easily incorporate the Foil Drive into your everyday lake session. We were spreading the stoke and getting more riders more time on the water, really just increasing the bang for your buck on every wave ridden.

I think we were just scratching the surface on how we can use these devices in other areas throughout the U.S. There are a ton of boaters on a ton of lakes out there whose back rollers are going unridden. I think it’s time we start making the most of them!