Our Story

Ryan Jones founded 1000 ISLANDS FOIL in 2023 as a way to share his love of foil boarding with others and to create a community around the new and exciting sport. Ryan grew up in Hawaii and Southern California and learned to surf at a young age. By the time he was a teenager, he was surfing every chance he could get and had developed a lifelong passion and commitment to the sport. When Ryan moved from the west coast to the Thousand Islands in 2021 to practice emergency medicine, he took up foil boarding as an alternative to traditional ocean surfing. He first learned to foil behind the boat on an unpowered foil board, letting go of the tow rope and surfing the boat’s wake. With the e-Foil he can now ride independently for miles, thanks to its long lasting rechargeable batteries which allow for at least ninety minutes of ride time. The e-Foil is an exciting new advancement in the evolution of surfing. Ryan is stoked to be able to share the thrill of flying above water with his students, friends, and family. During the warmer months, Ryan lives on Grenell Island with his girlfriend Emilie and their dog Henri. In the winter, to escape the cold, they all head to Rincon, Puerto Rico where Ryan teaches e-Foil lessons on the beach. 

1000 Islands Foil has partnered with LIFT FOILS to offer the newest, most advanced e-Foils on the market - the 4th generation to be offered.  Lift Foils is a family-run business making performance hydrofoils in Puerto Rico since 2010. They are the inventors of and market leaders in e-Foiling. In 2015, Lift co-founder Nick Leason, an engineer and avid surfer, came up with the idea for the original eFoil, applying the technology from smartphones, electric vehicles and even drones into a board that would let its rider fly above any body of water without needing to be propelled by wind or waves. After years of product testing and development, the original first-generation eFoil was released in 2017. The e-Foil is part surfboard, part hydrofoil, part hoverboard. Riding one is like gliding over the water on a magic flying carpet with near silent propulsion. As the world’s smallest personal watercraft, the e-Foil is perfect for long range cruising and exploring on flat open water. The e-Foil offers a whole new level of freedom on the water with a frontier of rideable places that you couldn’t access with any other type of surfboard. Because of its motor, the e-Foil is much easier to learn to ride than a traditional wind-powered or foot-pump-powered foil. You can literally ride for miles and miles. The e-Foil is accessible to most riders and doesn’t require super athletic abilities. Once you try it, you’ll be totally hooked.