Riding a hydrofoil is not as easy as it looks. That’s because the people you regularly see on foils are… well, they’re really good at it. But for the Average Joe surfer — or even a better-than-average Joe surfer — it’s not an easy thing to learn. Ben Gravy found that out firsthand when he recieved a very large package from an E-Foil company called Waydoo.
It can be easy to see someone ripping on a foil and think to yourself, “that looks fun. I could do that.” But it’s very unlikely that you could. At first, anyway. “I enjoy feeling like a kook again,” said Grant “Twiggy” Baker about foiling back in 2013. “Learning something new – and with foiling, if there’s a few people in the lineup, I’m at the end. I’m the worst surfer in the lineup.”
But once things begin to click, the fun begins. There’s a reason why hyper-talented surfers like Kai Lenny and Adam Bennetts love them so much: they’re extraordinarily fun. The learning curve is steep, though, and Ben Gravy threw himself at it. And if what we’re seeing is the first time he’s tried it, Ben’s going to get good fast.
“I got a couple,” he laughed afterwards. “A couple of dreamers… I’m hyped. I don’t know if I’m a foil guy, but I might be a foil guy!
Then Gravy did something that hurt. He got rid of his van. As someone who had an old, shitty van that took me up and down Baja countless times, I feel his pain. When I got rid of mine (it was left in a Cabo storage yard for most of COVID until I realized I hadn’t used it in three years), it nearly broke my heart. For Gravy, his van has taken him on countless journeys and given him countless good times. It’s funny how attached we can get to inanimate objects, isn’t it?
“It’s been nine years,” he said from behind the wheel. “The van is a huge part of my life. It’s a big part of my personal journey, growth-wise. It was the first big purchase I ever made. The first big piece of responsibility I ever took on… that van helped me become a grownup… not only that, but that van has been to 48 states — I think, except for Hawaii — that van was the anchor to my career.”
Gravy, however, is looking at it in a way that eases a bit of the pain. “I’m not even going to lie,” he said. “It’s not sad letting it go because I know it’s going to a good place and it’s going to help other people.
So where, you ask, did Gravy decide was a good enough place to gift his van? Well, to a friend who is the lead singer of a band called Gutter Drunk, which could quite possibly be the best band name ever.
While Gravy’s iconic van is his no longer, you can be sure that this is not the end of Gravy’s travels. He’ll just be doing them in something else.
