Gerry Lopez and NSP Launch Pelican, a Foil Drive-Compatible Surfboard

Gerry Lopez, the man who defined what it meant to surf Pipeline, has put his name on a foilboard built around the Foil Drive electric-assist ecosystem. The board is called the Pelican, and NSP is behind the build. The collaboration was announced March 13, 2026.

Lopez has always been the kind of surfer who chases the edge of what wave riding can be, and the Pelican fits that pattern. "I kind of designed it for a Foil Drive system," he explained, "but it also will function just fine as a prone paddle foilboard, too. With the Foil Drive, it's just really a friendly board. Whether you know how to use a foil drive and have done it a lot or you're just starting out… it just makes the process a lot easier."

The shape reflects a deliberate set of trade-offs. Foil hardware is heavy, so Lopez and NSP built the board itself as light as possible, landing on something thinner, shorter, and lighter than other Foil Drive-compatible boards currently on the market. The nose carries a subtle vee that transitions into a flat midsection, a rocker-and-hull combination The Inertia describes as "super efficient under power." The overall outline is rounded and forgiving, which makes sense given the positioning: this is a board meant to lower the barrier on a discipline that has historically punished beginners.

Foil Drive's electric-assist system does the heavy lifting of getting a rider up and holding them on foil, and the Pelican is built to work within that ecosystem specifically. The prone paddle foilboard functionality is secondary but real, giving the board a second life for riders who want to session without the motor.

Hydrofoiling's path into mainstream surfing culture is well-documented at this point. The moment most people cite is Laird Hamilton and the strapped crew towing into Jaws on foil-mounted surfboards with snowboard bindings, footage that ended up in the film Step Into Liquid. That was the cultural ignition point. From air chairs to Jaws to the current Foil Drive generation is a long arc, and the Pelican sits at the contemporary end of it.

No pricing, dimensions, or release window have been confirmed. What Lopez and NSP have put out is a clear design philosophy: keep the board light enough to compensate for heavy foil hardware, shape it to perform efficiently under Foil Drive power, and make the whole package approachable enough that the technology works for you rather than against you.