XTREME WATERSPORTS
1/30/2007 11:32:54 AM by Jacques Lerner
From kite surfing to wakeboarding to whitewater rafting, waterfall running and PWC freestyling, these extreme water sports are sure to get the blood pumping and the adrenaline rushing in and out of the water.
We all have a fascination with extreme sports, whether it is watching snowboarders fly off mountains and land safely on a hillside below or a jet ski jumping into the air like a great sailfish fighting a fishing line. We’ve gathered some extreme watersports, some of which you’re probably familiar with and some of which may be new. Extreme water sports help us maximize our water resources in a way that’s daring, fun, and totally 21st century.
PWC Freestyle
Freestyle jet skiing is about as death-defying as you can get and still ride home to tell about it. The action takes place on stand-up-style personal watercraft (PWC), from popular manufacturers such as Yamaha and Kawasaki.
Freestyle means tricks, and that’s where the thrilling action is. Think BMX and Motocross bon water. Like the aforementioned, athletes in this sport are judged on performance and skill, and rated on the difficulty of the tricks chosen for their performance. Both professional and amateur opportunities are available.
World champion freestyle jet skier Marc “The Shark” Sickerling of Germany believes in the continuing evolution of the sport. “The fascination of the sport for me is the unlimited possibilities that will continue to develop in the future,” he says. “I can ride alone on the water with my jet ski, whether on a lake with calm water, in the surf of the sea or on a river with white water.” Sickerling entered the Guinness Book of World Records after being awarded the European Championship title by the International Jet Ski Boating Association five times in 1991-1994 and 1998.
The World Freestyle Watercraft Alliance (WFWA) promotes the sport in a way that doesn’t take away the brave, dangerous, extreme nature of the sport. The Alliance offers clinics at their WFWA events to attract more participants to the sport in a relatively safe and fun manner.
Kite Surfing
Kite surfing first came to public notice around 1998 and has since grown to more than 150,000 participants. The basic premise of kite surfing, also known as fly surfing and kiteboarding, utilizes power kits to tow the rider through the water on a compact surfboard, wakeboard or kiteboard. As the rider’s body is the only thing that connects the kite and the board, the kite surfer must maintain control over both simultaneously: the kite flying aloft and navigating the board on the water. Not an easy task for the uninitiated.
Innovations to the sport continue rapidly with new kite designs, improved safety-release systems, and evolving styles including wake, wave riding, freestyle, jumping and cruising. This dynamic new sport takes the best of wakeboarding and windsurfing to skate the rider across the water’s surface, under conditions that allow for up to 30-foot jumps. The best ride occurs in 10- to 20-knot winds on flat shallow water, though it has been reported that surfers were able to maintain control in 50-knot gusts at one competition in Leucate, France.
“Kite surfing is a unique combination of surfing, wake boarding, windsurfing and a touch of paragliding. To me, kite surfing is a jumping sport, not something to ride waves or race,” says Robbie Naish, windsurfing champion and owner of Naish Hawaii. “Who knows how high you can go? The sport is still in its infancy.”
Wakeboarding
Wakeboarding has been around for two decades, both occurring behind a boat and being towed by an automated cable (as in cable wakeboarding), but add in a new generation of extremely zealous athletes, and the daring sport of extreme wakeboarding becomes one of the fastest growing extreme sports today.
The sport takes the water towing aspect of water skiing and combines it with the riding and trick principles of snowboarding, and adds in a bit of surfing technique. Like other extreme sports, wakeboarding is judged upon a variety of tricks performed by the rider during competition. Only the hardiest and most skilled win.
“Never give up, because sooner or later, you will get it,” says distinguished wakeboarder Kayla Chojnacki, 16. Along with her sister, Melanie, 12, they have 72 trophies and medals, with Kayla having earned 37 and Melanie being awarded 35.
“Some goals I am working on now are learning a scarecrow behind the boat and hopefully coming in Top 12 on the pro tour,” says Kayla. “I would like to be remembered as a kind person and a good friend and also leaving an impact in wakeboarding.”
“They both enjoy riding behind the boat and also the cable,” adds their proud father, Mike, of this youthful sport. “My younger daughter Melanie who is 12 years old won Nationals this year in the girls division and was chosen to be on the U.S. team and compete at Worlds in Austria this past summer. She was the youngest rider on the U.S. team and the youngest rider in the competition.”
Waterfall Running
If paddling a kayak over a waterfall doesn’t count as “extreme,” we don’t know what would. Those who have done it say there is nothing that can compare to running a waterfall in a kayak. The glorious free fall, then the spectacular splash. Many factors contribute to a successful waterfall run, including boat momentum, angle stroke placement, body position and air awareness, though when it comes to drops of more than 25 feet, gravity plays the biggest part. As the pinnacle of whitewater kayaking, waterfall running is fun, scary, perilous and stimulating. In other words, it has the same qualities that attract kayakers to other forms of extreme whitewater kayaking.
“If you include sliding waterfalls, I have the record,” says the Tiger Woods of whitewater kayaking, Tao Berman, referring to his impressive kayaking down Lacey Falls in British Columbia. The angled cascade that forms the falls runs 300 feet, heading directly to the Pacific Ocean. Berman started his kayak run 180 feet up. He had achieved a top speed of 40 mph when he “boofed” brutally against a rocky protrusion near the bottom and bounced into the saltwater below. There was only three feet of water between his boat and the large boulders hidden beneath his target water. The result of the “boof” was a severely dented boat. “That was just on surface impact,” Berman says. “Imagine if I’d hit the rocks at that speed!”
Whitewater Rafting
Whitewater is classified by river difficulty and danger. At the riskiest end of the spectrum to traverse are the Class VI rivers that feature the caution “danger to life and limb” warning. These are a test of even the most seasoned expert’s talent, not to mention a blood-rushing extreme thrill.
Whitewater is the result of a rapid that is created when the river gradient drops sufficiently to form a bubbly, aerated and unstable flow. Class ratings start at Class I, which has very small rough spots with no special maneuvering required, through the daring and popular Class V rivers which feature large waves, rocks, and perhaps a significant drop. These waters require precise maneuvering in the form of advanced whitewater experience. Class VI rivers stand apart with their giant waves, huge rocks and hazards, and are considered hazardous even for expert paddlers with high-tech equipment.
“It’s not a roller-coaster ride where you get strapped in, ride and get off,” says Chris Dragan of Wildwater Expeditions in West Virginia. “You’re always dealing with Mother Nature, and just about the time you think you’re getting good, the river comes up and slaps you in the face and it tells you: ‘I let you come out and play, but the river’s still in charge.’”
Windsurfing
One of the world’s hottest surface water sports combines a sailboard powered by a single sail and a little steering, tilting and rotating savvy and combines sailing, surfing, and waterskiing for the ride of a lifetime. Currently, a windsurfer holds the world speed record for sailing craft, and most windsurfers perform jumps, inverted loops, spinning maneuvers and other freestyle moves that can’t be matched by any other sport on the planet. Competitions for the sport are divided into seven disciplines: Olympic Windsurfing Class, Formula Windsurfing Class, Slalom, Super X, Speed Racing, Freestyle and Wave. Recently, Biscayne Bay held the first RSX North American Championship with more than 100 sailors representing 20 countries, featuring five classes of windsurfing, including R:SX, the official windsurfing class for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “The competition was intense and tactically challenging,” says Kerry Gruson, a Sonar skipper and sailing instructor at Shake-A-Leg Miami. The competition celebrated the memory of Alex Caviglia, a consummate windboarder who recently passed after awaking from a 10-month coma caused by a traumatic brain injury he sustained in a kite boarding accident. Silvia Caviglia, Alex’s widow and creator of the Alex Caviglia Bluewater Foundation, co-sponsored the event with Shake-A-Leg. “We seek to serve and educate individuals and families who have been touched by a traumatic brain injury,” she says. “We are reminded that life can change in the blink of an eye.” A somber reminder that safety precautions must be kept in mind when participating in any sport, no matter how experienced the participant.
Surfing
Perhaps no other sport is sexier than surfing. Top surfers (ala Kelly Slater) can aspire to not only be at the top of their respective waves, but also to grace billboards and magazine ads as the official face of brands the likes of Quicksilver. But it’s the thrill that most surfers thrive on in this sport that made it a multi-billion dollar industry. Mike Janot, an avid surfer for the past decade, says the worst part of the sport is “wave rage.” “Sometimes you get guys — and girls — out there that can’t follow simple surfing etiquette,” he says. “I’m more afraid of running into one of those type of people than I am about sharks and drowning.
They just really ruin the whole thing, especially when they don’t even know how to ride.” The solution, says Aimee Alcindor, a surf instructor based out of Malibu, is to avoid the touristy surf destinations and aspire to more exotic locales like South and Central America, where a cheap plane ticket will guarantee secluded — and sometimes undiscovered — surf spots. Wave prefers and recommends a few surf breaks on the other side of the world, including G-Land off of Bali in East Java, Bells Beach in Australia and Tahiti’s Teahupo’o. Even if the aforementioned waters are crowded with other surfers, there should be enough swells to go around.