Flyboarding in Thailand

Recently, at the pool hall in Pattaya, where I visit regularly, I spoke with Edward, a nice Russian from Saint Petersburg (yes, there are nice Russians too). He has been coming to Thailand for holidays for several years in a row, but now he told me that he had settled permanently in Pattaya.

Oh, I asked him, do you work here now? Yes, he had acquired the sole rights to Pattaya to run a flyboard station. A flyboard station? Never heard of it! What is that?

Edward explained to me what this relatively new sport of flyboarding entails and I thought from his gibberish English I had more or less understood how it works. I could explain it my way, but I've made it easy for myself this time. I went looking on the internet and found an excellent description on the website of FlyboardWorld.

What is a fly board?

A flyboard is essentially a hydropowered jetpack. You wear it under your feet by means of special bindings. Under the flyboard are two exhausts that are connected to a jet ski via a high-pressure hose. When the jet ski turns on, the water flows from the pump through the hose to the flyboard outlets. This creates thrust. By shifting your weight and tilting your feet you can make all kinds of movements in and above the water. The jet ski itself follows you as you flyboard, so you always have plenty of room to move around.

Flyboarding is a great new sport that gives you complete freedom in the water. You can shoot through the waves like a dolphin without prior training and fly through the air up to 15 meters high.

The story behind the flyboard

The flyboard was invented by Franky Zapata, a professional jet ski racer from France. After years of experience building and maintaining jet skis, he realized that the powerful water pump could also be used to power external devices. After testing various prototypes, he introduced the flyboard in 2011. The YouTube video of his demonstration was viewed 15 million times in 2,5 days.

Flyboarding in Thailand

Flyboarding is unique within the extreme sports. A flyboard is very easy to use - you don't need much training or strength to have fun. The advertising slogan is: “Fly like a bird and dive like a dolphin” Almost anyone can handle it no matter how old or how fit someone is. You only need a short introduction, which you can follow at a flyboard station.

In Thailand this is now possible in Pattaya and on Koh Samui and it is to be expected that flyboard stations will also be established elsewhere in Thailand. See Edward's website: www.flyboardstation.com Interested in Koh Samui, I would like to refer to www.facebook.com/FlyboardKohSamuiLamai

Flyboard World Championship

So the world's coolest new extreme water sport is quickly becoming very popular and is even hosting world championships. Let the world champion of the past two years be a Thai now! On YouTube you will find various videos of flyboarding, but I thought it would be nice to show a video of this Suksan Thongthai:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CJ53QRthfI[/youtube]