Up and Down and Up......They Going?

June 27, 2005 9:58 PM

The Aquaskipper
24 pounds of water-hopping hydrofoil chicanery (wmv file).
posted by fenriq (18 comments total)

Wow.

What kind of cross-training might prepare one to do that hopping motion?
posted by weston at 10:06 PM on June 27, 2005

Just don't stop hopping mid-lake.
posted by stenseng at 10:17 PM on June 27, 2005

amazing
posted by liquid54 at 10:22 PM on June 27, 2005

Woah. It took me a second to realize it wasn't just a boat-towed hydrofoil ski. That's nuts.
posted by loquacious at 10:24 PM on June 27, 2005

There's some real inventiveness gone into that. Wow is right.
posted by peacay at 10:27 PM on June 27, 2005

this idea has been around for years but it's still amazing...
posted by marvin at 10:39 PM on June 27, 2005

Damn but that looks like hard work. I want to lie down now just after watching it.
posted by argybarg at 10:45 PM on June 27, 2005

Not new.
posted by Duug at 1:35 AM on June 28, 2005

yeah....have a feeling it would be to much work driving one of those things. Looks like its hard to get it to go fast enought to really have fun;)
posted by Groomz at 2:56 AM on June 28, 2005

Way cool!!! What fun!
posted by nickyskye at 4:13 AM on June 28, 2005

A rival summer camp to the one that I worked at had something similar called an "aquabike." I never tried it, but it did indeed both look like fun and hard work.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:51 AM on June 28, 2005

$600 is pretty steep.
posted by Chuckles at 4:51 AM on June 28, 2005

not ready for prime time. Anything that can't be launched without a dock is about useless in the water....

and... $600 for a bad idea is a tad much...... hell, for that I can buy a pretty nice kayak, probably go just as fast, and won't drown mid-lake if I stop using the paddle...
posted by HuronBob at 11:05 AM on June 28, 2005

I would like to give one of these a try as it looks like fun, for about a little while. Then it looks like hard work.

HuronBob, if you can get a kayak up to 17 miles an hour then I would be mightily impressed. But the non-sinking part is a definite advantage.

I was wondering if the inventor could trade some speed for easier locomotion and bouyancy?
posted by fenriq at 11:24 AM on June 28, 2005

Vessel = interesting. Riders = dorks. There is no cool involved with anything powered by bouncing up and down (unless its humping, which is awesomely cool, but humping your watercraft == not cool).
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:01 PM on June 28, 2005

Riders = dorks.

Yeah, if they want it to sell, ditch the frat boys dry humping a stationary bicycle and swap it for hot chicks in bikini's bouncing their way straight towards the camera. Make sure the ones in white t-shirts sink in the end.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:49 PM on June 28, 2005

A MeFi lurker (hi Andy P.) dropped me an email with a link to a very cool kayak called the Flyak by FoilKayak that's topped 15 miles an hour so I would have to say that HuronBob's not too far off the mark. Though the paddler in question is a world class athlete so your results may not be quite so astonishing.

And it looks totally cool. But I also think MiltonRandKalman's on to something. The humping action would be much more desirous if they had hotties hoppin' all over it! I can almost see the wardobe malfunction now!
posted by fenriq at 3:35 PM on June 28, 2005

And it looks totally cool.

agreed. I like how they have two styles. I guess the F1 doesn't come with sunglasses?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:58 PM on June 28, 2005