Have any of you foilers been trying out your foils on flat water? No waves?

I heard a story about a guy on a SUP foil who cleaned up a field of surf skis. No wind. No waves. He beat the skis in a sprint start. Recovered, then beat them in an endurance event.

I am thinking that the small amount of lift you get from paddling a foil could be quite fun on flat water, no wind days. I also think that the gymnastic looking pumping we see is more a function of technique and technology. Once it's worked out we'll find it is much easier than it looks. This has been our experience with kite foiling where the more we do it, the easier it gets. It is possible to do almost stationary pivot turns and hand drags at quite low speeds.

When I fall of my kite foilboard I can see that the slightest forward motion from a breeze or a bit of swell lifts the board a tiny bit onto the foil and it glides off by itself, faster than I can swim. There has to be some efficiency gained through getting that little bit of lift from the foil.