Mike Murphy

Mike Murphy is one of the true originals of modern foiling. A water-ski racer, show skier, freestyler, inventor, teacher, and lifelong tinkerer, Mike helped create the sit-down hydrofoil as a co-inventor of the Air Chair, then pushed the sport forward again as founder of Sky Ski and Next Foils. His history reaches back to stand-up hydrofoils in the 1960s, the original Knee Ski in the 1970s, the Air Chair boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and decades of hydrofoil design, promotion, clinics, records, and big-air riding. Mike was also the first hydrofoiler credited with riding away from a flip, making him one of the foundational riders and inventors in the foiling world.

Mike Murphy is one of the foundational figures in modern foiling: a water ski racer, show skier, freestyler, inventor, teacher, promoter, and lifelong experimenter whose career helped turn hydrofoiling from a strange towing contraption into a real riding sport.

Mike’s foiling story goes back to 1966, when he had just graduated from high school and was working as a water ski instructor on Lake Arrowhead, California. That summer, he was introduced to stand-up waterski hydrofoils and got up on his first try. From that point on, foils became one of his lifelong obsessions. He was already deeply immersed in water skiing, and over the following decades, he would leave a mark across racing, show skiing, hot dog skiing, kneeboarding, hydrofoiling, product design, instruction, and promotion.

Before the Air Chair and Sky Ski era, Mike had already helped change the watersports landscape. In 1972, he co-invented the original Knee Ski, helping spark the kneeboarding movement. He also became known for hot-dog water-skiing, freestyle showmanship, and pushing oddball water toys well beyond what most riders thought was possible. His public career included show skiing, speed skiing, ski racing, exhibitions, ski school work, product demos, magazine coverage, TV appearances, and countless clinics.

The invention that most directly tied Mike to foiling history was the Air Chair. In the late 1980s, Mike Murphy and Bob Woolley developed the sit-down hydrofoil that became the first widely sold commercial hydrofoil chair. Early prototypes evolved from stand-up foil ideas, sit-down ski concepts, and months of crash-tested refinement. Mike’s own account of the early design describes Bob doing much of the building while Mike rode, tested, suggested changes, promoted the idea, and helped push the ride toward production. After one hard crash, Mike added a car seatbelt so the rider stayed attached to the seat. That change made the device safer and also opened the door to bigger jumps.

Mike originally liked the name Sky Ski for the new ride, inspired in part by his show-skiing background in the Tommy Bartlett “Ski, Sky and Stage” world. The production product eventually launched under the Air Chair name, but the Sky Ski name would return later as Mike’s own company. The Air Chair became the spark that brought sit-down hydrofoiling into public view, and Mike became the face of the new sport. He traveled the boat show circuit, performed demos, taught riders, promoted the product, and helped turn a wild invention into a recognizable watersports discipline.

In 1990, Mike rode away from the first flips on a hydrofoil and then began teaching other riders how to flip as well. That milestone helped set the tone for early sit-down hydrofoiling: big jumps, spins, rolls, flips, and a style of riding that looked almost impossible to anyone watching from a boat. Over the years, Mike helped sell and promote thousands of Air Chairs worldwide, while also continuing to push for faster product development, stronger parts, softer landings, better control, and higher performance.

After leaving Air Chair, Mike retained rights connected to the sit-down hydrofoil patents and, in 1998, founded Sky Ski. That gave him the freedom to implement years of performance ideas. At Sky Ski, he reworked the wings, added strength to the t-bar, redesigned the tower structures, experimented with larger, stronger parts, and built equipment for riders who were jumping higher and landing harder than early Air Chair components were designed to handle. His Sky Ski developments included the Rock Tower, Shock Tower, Sky Ski Jr., high-performance billet aluminum parts, larger wings, stronger t-bars, and the Convertible, a board that could be ridden sitting down or converted for stand-up use.

Mike’s years with Sky Ski helped transform the equipment side of hydrofoiling. He moved away from weaker cast aluminum parts for high-performance riders and pushed into CNC-machined billet aluminum, 6061-T6 aircraft-grade materials, stronger struts, refined fuselages, and more durable wings. Sky Ski team riders were using the equipment for 20 to 25-foot jumps, and Mike kept chasing stronger, cleaner, more reliable designs. He later sold Sky Ski in 2004, but the company’s influence remained a major part of sit-down hydrofoil history.

Mike also helped connect sit-down hydrofoiling to the larger evolution of stand-up foiling. According to Mike’s own history, he taught Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece how to ride sit-down foils in the late 1990s, then later supplied Laird with foils for stand-up boards that were ridden surf-style on large waves after being towed in by personal watercraft. That connection is one of the threads between the Air Chair and Sky Ski world and the modern surf-foil explosion that followed.

After Sky Ski, Mike continued inventing across watersports. His projects included the PureVert Wake System, Power Tower, Air Sling, and other boat and watersports ideas. When his non-compete period after Sky Ski ended, he returned to hydrofoils through Next Foils, where he focused again on stronger, lighter, better-performing foil parts. Next Foils continued Mike’s long-running design themes: high-performance materials, better landing absorption, stronger towers, better bars, and practical improvements that came from decades of riding, crashing, testing, teaching, and rebuilding.

Mike’s public record includes a long list of riding and design milestones. He is credited as a co-inventor of the original Knee Ski, co-inventor of the Air Chair, founder of Sky Ski, founder of Next Foils, inventor of the PureVert Wake System, holder of multiple water-ski-related patents, and inventor of dozens of tricks across different water toys. His competitive and performance highlights include a 1966 Catalina Ski Race outboard division win, a 1968 Lake Mead 75-mile Open Men championship, a 1978 International Speed Ski title at 118.92 mph in the quarter mile, a 1994 run of 708 consecutive flips in one ride, and a 1998 Flight Worlds Big Air title at 18 feet 6 inches.

In 2016, Mike added another public milestone when Guinness World Records recognized his ride on a 3.42 m (11 ft 2.6 in) tall Air Chair at a water-sports event in Long Beach, California. To make the record count, he rode the extremely tall sit-down hydrofoil, broke the surface of the water with the wing, and maintained control for more than 100 feet. It was a perfect Mike Murphy kind of record: part invention, part balance, part showmanship, and part refusal to stop pushing the limits of what a foil could do.

Mike Murphy’s place in foiling history is bigger than one product name. He helped create the Air Chair, carried the Sky Ski name into a new era of performance hydrofoils, kept innovating through Next Foils, and spent decades teaching, promoting, testing, and proving what hydrofoils could become. Modern foiling has many branches, but Mike’s fingerprints are all over the trunk of the tree.

More history: Mike’s Foiling History at Next Foils, Air Chair history at A Water Skier’s Life, and Mike Murphy’s 2016 Guinness World Records ride.