FLYING ON FOUR LEGS OR TWO: REDPATH WATEFRONG FESTIVAL

Since the dawn of time ... or at least midmorning, after everyone's had some breaky and maybe a power nap ... Man has dreamed of flying

So, apparently, have dogs.

Yeh, OK so perhaps I should explain.

This past weekend Collette and I took our cameras to the Redpath Waterfront Festival. This was a (mostly) free event, sponsored by Redpath Sugar, that sprawled along Toronto's western downtown waterfront, or at least the condo-and-industrial-with-a-few-trees blister that passes as our waterfront in that area.

We went down to watch two competitive sports that encouraged living creatures to attempt flight, before artfully plunging into water

Dock Diving is a sport you may have seen on TV. It's a canine sport, where dogs fly off of a dock as high and far as possible before diving into the water in pursuit of a floating "bait" The sides of the tank into which the dogs dive are ruled with the length and high speed cameras catch the moments the dog actually impacts the water, providing an accurate reading.

As in most canine sports the humans assess the winners and losers, the dogs just have fun

This is an actual sport, these were North American qualifiers with dogs from all over the continent, points are rewarded for the distance dived but seeing it up and close and personal, you have to give the pooches style points

If dogs, in their pursuit of flight, use their ancient instincts and natural athletic ability, Man of course, has to go a bit beyond. That's because we have the ability to utilize technology and, let's be honest, we're just nuts




Flyboarding is a sport that is half jetpack, half jetski, half skateboarding, half acrobatics and half wakeboard. Yeh, that's a lot of halves.

The athlete uses a board that is attached by a long hose to a jetski. The jetski's engine forces the water up through the hose and propels it out through the boots that the guy wears, bolted to the board. That gives him enough propulsion to achieve heights up to 15 meters

The rider controls the jetski so often there was no one operating the craft, they can move around the performance area with the seadoo following them, all on their own

As in skateboarding and wakeboarding there are prescibed moves the athlete can perform and they are judged on how well they do those. Never having watched this sport before I couldn't judge how good these guys were but the fact that could could even "stand" on those columns of water impressed the crap out of me

Some of their moves made sense once you saw them, like the slalom which you'll see in the video; dolphing was impressive, the rider pushed himself up in the air, arched his back, dove into the water, went completely under the surface then blasted back up into the air. They could chain several of these movements together which made them skilled and brave .. that's Lake Ontario they are going into

Even more amazing is the ability of the riders to use their jets of water to spin completely in mid air, the really talented guys could complete two or three of these somersaults. These guys are athletes make no mistake about that

After our winter it was great to be out in the sun, on the water, watching dogs and humans fly .. and did I mention there was a beer garden? Yeh, you probably figured out that much.




Here's the video


Redpath Waterfront Festival from Victor Kellar on Vimeo .