Photo: Screenshot from Vimeo
The stand-up jet skis are the BMW bikes of the water sports: not very practical, a pain to ride over longer distances, but exactly the vehicle you want to find yourself riding when you plan to perform some tricks.
These guys are just as insane as the ones doing extreme sailboarding - maybe even more so, since they don't have the advantage of a sail that can be turned into some kind of parachute to dampen the fall. On a stand-up jet ski, you see the wave, you get on the throttle and you go as high up into the air as possible. Whatever comes next is irrelevant at that moment, and you'll deal with it when the time comes. Which is pretty soon.
Needless to say, freestyle contests featuring these vehicles draw large crowds, even though viewing something that's happening in the ocean, sometimes at a considerable distance, can be quite tricky. Luckily, there are those who go and film right where the action is, and in later years they've also received the help of the good old drones, so we can rest assured we won't miss a second of the action.
Well, this drive to get the best action shots cost the owner of a drone dearly, as one of the jet skiers jumped higher than anyone anticipated, smashing his vehicle into the poor copter that didn't stand a chance. Sure, it did make it into the presentation clip for the Yamaha New Zealand Festival of Freeride 2016, but when you need to fork out a few thousands of dollars, that's very little consolation.
But at least we've found out something: instead of training eagles and building net launchers that look like they could take down a tank, there is another way of dealing with unwanted drones. There is this minor inconvenience that they need to fly over a large body of water, preferably with high waves, but when it does work, it is by far the best way to dispose of a drone.
We'll leave the whole event video below, but if you wish to skip directly to where the drone violence happens, go to the 3:45-minute mark.
Needless to say, freestyle contests featuring these vehicles draw large crowds, even though viewing something that's happening in the ocean, sometimes at a considerable distance, can be quite tricky. Luckily, there are those who go and film right where the action is, and in later years they've also received the help of the good old drones, so we can rest assured we won't miss a second of the action.
Well, this drive to get the best action shots cost the owner of a drone dearly, as one of the jet skiers jumped higher than anyone anticipated, smashing his vehicle into the poor copter that didn't stand a chance. Sure, it did make it into the presentation clip for the Yamaha New Zealand Festival of Freeride 2016, but when you need to fork out a few thousands of dollars, that's very little consolation.
But at least we've found out something: instead of training eagles and building net launchers that look like they could take down a tank, there is another way of dealing with unwanted drones. There is this minor inconvenience that they need to fly over a large body of water, preferably with high waves, but when it does work, it is by far the best way to dispose of a drone.
We'll leave the whole event video below, but if you wish to skip directly to where the drone violence happens, go to the 3:45-minute mark.
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