On Saturday 24.6.2023 we celebrated another Pumpfoil day on the shores of lake Zürich, Switzerland, trying to achieve our longstanding goal of having more dockstarters in Zürich then Surfers in Hawaii ;).

One of the hidden reasons why Dockstarting and Pumpfoiling is attracting the attention of many people, young and old, male or female is that learning the sport takes time, personal effort and has a long lasting positive therapeutic value/effect for ADHD/ADD personalities.

If you learn horseback riding it will take you about 50 hours to learn to trust and guide the horse properly. But a horse is on land. Some people love the water and in landlocked Switzerland there is no ocean but there is a lot of water. It happens to rain a lot in Switzerland. ChatGPT tells me there are about 1500 lakes in Switzerland. So here the Swiss fairytale of Dockstarting/Pumpfoiling begins. There is no more reason not to go onto the water everyday, not being dependent on waves, or weather. All you need is access to water and a dock, pier, rock, ladder, SUP, etc to start from. Of course you also need your equipment: A board, foil, frontwing, fuselage, stabilizer, mast and maybe some shims to trim your wings. In winter you will need a wetsuit as well.

What also helps is an instructor that gives you an introduction on how to hold the board, how to jump onto the board, how not to crash on the foil or the stabilizer and how to learn to love the sport. 

Zeno’s Pumpfoil day was exactly such a day, where anybody who happened to pass by or can already pump longer then a minute was welcome to try the latest High Performance carbon equipment of INDIANA Paddle and Surf.

The way the community was built, is by sharing your board with anybody who wants to try! INDIANA supported this idea right from the beginning and Zeno’s pumpfoiling day is an ode to the spirit to always share your board with a newbie, no matter who he/she is, friend or foe. If he/she wants to try, let him/her try!

There are significant mental and health gains coming from pumpfoiling that smooth the hyperactive ADHD/ADD character. Many great sports personalities have ADHD/ADD genes. Learning to pumpfoil will help you manage your own hyperactive personality better. Pumpfoiling comes with such a need for an Autistic Hyperfocus in the first three seconds when you jump on your board, that it completely empties your mind and makes you forget everything else, all your problems and sorrows in life. Every dockstart gives you a proper grounding and mindfulness reset of your Cerebrum. 

So in this sense I would like to thank the following people personally for their outstanding contribution of being awesome community ambassadors for the sport in Switzerland!

4 Champagne bottles where dished out for special community achievements by the following people:

1. Team Axis led by Andy, Mitsch, Kilian
2. The power pumper ladies: Sarah and Anja
3. The pumpfoiling.community founders: Patrick and Sorin
4. And the survey master Philipp
5. Steve and Leo also got a bottle for their Movie 3066, but they could not take it back home because they had no more space on their SUP on the way back to the headquarters!

Roger from Turicum-Surf came by Boat.

The goal continues: Soon we will have more Pumpfoilers in Zürich then Surfers in Hawaii ;).
We also want to thank the sponsors: Suddenrush Guarana, Focus Water and INDIANA Paddlesurf