Adam Bennetts grew up surfing on normal surfboards in Australia. You’d be hard-pressed, I think, to find a foiler who didn’t, but Bennetts surfed — and still does — at a very high level. He was living in Bali when he first got interested in foiling, surfing pumping waves most days and getting barreled off his head as much as possible. At first, he thought foiling looked a little boring, but that soon changed.
After he returned to Australia, he decided he might as well give it a shot. And when he did… well, everything changed. Now, it’s pretty much the only way he rides waves, and as a result he’s gotten extraordinarily good at something that is extraordinarily difficult.
Surf foils can be a bit of a sore spot for some surfers. They can be very dangerous if used improperly or by someone not aware of how badly they can hurt someone, but when the lineup is pretty much empty and they’re used by someone like Bennetts, it’s tough to imagine something more fun.
He recently headed back to Bali for a quick jaunt at Uluwatu. The waves were very good by most standards, but just average for Uluwatu, so the crowd was thin and Bennetts had the lineup basically to himself. Which is good, because the way he surfs on a foil, he’s able to basically surf non-stop.
