beautiful and light weight foilboards
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I just got my first session on the 45L 5’2 midlength yesterday we were towing but couldn’t resist riding the new board. So fun, boards turned out light, stiff and super nice. Need to try the 80L 6’6 next which I’m thinking will be my main parawing board. I’ve been riding a preproduction 7’4 dw sup since fall and stoked to get the production model, the weight is pretty impressive.
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Patrick - if you can tell me that Matt will make me a custom color, I’ll have one on order for the next Gorge season 
Boards look great, dims make sense and pricepoint is also quite good. Can anyone share who is building these boards?
From their website:
Our boards are a labor of love. Designed by Sean Ordonez on Maui with input from our entire team, each shape is refined through real-world riding and constant feedback.
Built in small batches, we source the best materials available and work with a production crew bringing over 50 years of board-building experience. The result of this no-expense-spared approach is lightweight, full-carbon boards with clean resin-tinted finishes and shapes that are thoroughly tested for your enjoyment.
Thanks, but was trying to understand what factory (or builder) is building them. Could be wrong, but would be surprised if SO was actually manufacturing the boards.
Ohhhhhhh gotchya. Sorry, my reading comprehension should have clued me into this part of the description:
and work with a production crew bringing over 50 years of board-building experience
Any color you want as long as its green! Haha, I actually have no idea.
The color does look really good tho
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Man, I love that dude, could watch his videos all day!
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only a little over 10lbs for a 100L board 
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In my experience there is no such thing as cosmetic heal dents. The heal dents are the structure of the board breaking down(crushing) that eventually lead to delamination
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Agreed. Got to reinforce the deck support. One or 2 layers of s-glass doesn’t add much weight.
I know Sean Ordonez has shaped all the Lift boards for at least the last 5 years or more, and I would think he’s probably still using the same glassing company on these, and all of my Lift boards have been bulletproof construction. IMHO, the resin colors on those boards have always looked the best to my eye as well versus other brands’ production boards spray-paint-finished look. I ordered one of Hydrocraft’s boards and will give an update on the build quality after I log many hours on the water with it. But without even receiving or riding it yet, the price point alone for that gorgeous-looking design for parawinging you honestly can’t beat it. For comparison, the new 2026 F-One Rocket Free Surf (Carbon, 6’2” x 71 liters) is $2,539 before tax and any shipping cost. That’s an $889 price difference which is a pretty big pricing gap. So regardless, let’s just be thankful to Matt and his whole team at Hydrocraft for bringing these boards to the foiling market as an option. Will Hydrocraft be able to stay at this price point into the future? I’m not sure, so better grab them at this valued price point while we can. Lastly, the Hydrocraft team is ripping on them, so I’m sure they are plenty good for most of the average foilers getting into parawinging until newer design ideas are released years down the road.
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Appreciate the kind thoughts and stoke! I wanted to jump in and answer a few questions.
Design & Production: Sean Ordonez designs the boards and builds our prototypes on Maui. While Sean handles the design, our production boards are built overseas at a factory I have tremendous respect for. The crew that runs the production surfs, foils, and obsesses over craftsmanship.
Durability & Construction: Regarding the “cosmetic heel dents” note on the site, that wasn’t the best wording on my part. My goal was simply honesty: this first batch of boards uses lightweight, custom-style carbon vacuum lamination with a 1.5lb EPS core. It’s our best attempt to make the strongest and lightest gear we could; cost was never in the equation, and the layups used in these boards reflect that. We’re 200 lbs and ride every day without delaminating or breaking these boards. They’re very solid, but I’m not going to lie and say my personal board has zero dents in it. If you like a light, custom-style board and take reasonable care of your gear, you’re going to be stoked on these boards for years to come. If you like to boost to the moon, want a deck that will never dent, and are willing to sacrifice a bit of weight, there are construction methods that might be more suitable for you, and we will have those options available this summer. This first batch is built to our personal preferences, which I think many people will appreciate, but it’s not for everyone.
Building light and strong boards is a never-ending evolution, from the first solid wood boards to Pete Peterson inventing fiberglass boards in the ’40s. We love the challenge. There is no layup, material, or process we aren’t willing to try. It’s a daily discussion and obsession. My girlfriend is sick of hearing about it.
Pricing: My goal is to get more of my friends into foiling, and $3,000 boards make that tough. That being said, I’m only interested in riding the best gear possible, so we try to run an ultra-efficient business to keep the price reasonable. We have no distributors, dealers, or marketing team, and we build products in small batches.
Colors: Each batch of boards we produce will have a unique colorway to keep things fresh. If you like the green, get on it. If you want a different colorway, hang tight for the next batch.
We’re a small business, but our goal is to go toe-to-toe with the best brands in the world regarding product quality and customer experience. We have a long way to go to reach our goals, but I can promise you that we won’t be outworked in an effort to make it happen and gain your trust along the way.
If you ever have any ideas or input, drop me an email: matt@hydrocraftsystems.com.
All the best,
Matt Elsasser
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Well said Matt! I totally get it that a parawing or sup foil board are a different layup than a hucking wing board. I love what your company philosophy seems to represent and the boards look amazing. That price is a huge standout compared to other market boards. The first SUP I ever rode was one of the first production SOS boards probably 20 years ago. Can’t wait to demo one of your this summer at the Gorge. Love the direct to consumer model too. It will be interesting to see how this pans out compared to the rep/marketing/ middle man model. I like how smaller companies can react quicker to the needs of foilers and to new innovation. Seems like bigger companies take 1-2 years to bring products to market and often it is old tech at that point.
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cool video
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Any more hands-experiences/reviews on these boards?
I demo’ed an ATV 75L and loved it so much I bought one and am waiting on the next shipment for delivery. It was super stable and took off well even though it was light wind. I was parawinging on a 4.3m Power Pack and the board made things easy. I have been riding pretty narrow boards with rounded bottoms and was hoping a little more width and flatter bottom would give me a bit more stability without too much compromise in light wind lift off. The ATV was all that and more, and at a price that I felt was very fair compared to some other new parawing specific boards coming out now. I can’t wait until mine comes in.
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What’s your weight? I’m 93kg and have been wondering if I can swing this volume in the ATV