Playing sports in water has been something people have done for many years. The first recorded document of swimming methods appears to be a book titled: “The Diver, or A Dialogue Concerning the Art of Swimming” written in 1538, it took until the year 1896 for swimming to become popular enough to be featured in the Olympics. However, this article is going to focus, not on the art of swimming, but the top extreme water sports.
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Top Extreme Water sports
We have already covered the statistically most dangerous extreme sports, so in this article, we are going to focus on ones that are not in that article, such as cave diving. However, there are still quite a few extreme water sports for you to look at. One thing to note, however, is that I have not put these in any order of danger, nor popularity. Instead, to keep it simple, I will list them alphabetically.
Air Kicking
I think the image is pretty self-explanatory for air kicking. It is certainly something that a lot more people would try than some of the activities classed as extreme. Jump on, and get catapulted into a swimming pool or the sea. Depending on where you go.
There are not many venues that offer this sport (if it is a sport, or it could be an amusement). Either way, it is certainly more extreme than a lilo.
High-pressure water is ejected through a nozzle under the seat to propel you over 20 feet into the air before splash-down!
It does not have to be water, though. Some places will use compressed air and throw you into a foam pit. However, they are a lot noisier!
Barefoot Waterskiing
Like waterskiing, but barefoot. This version of another extreme water sports requires you to take your shoes off! I have to be honest; the woman in the picture is making it look anything but extreme. However, I have a feeling that if I were to try it, I would be in that lake, face down.
New Year’s day 2019 at Lake Norman, North Carolina saw the 41st annual barefoot waterskiing tournament. It is still the most significant and longest-running barefoot water skiing tournament of its kind. Participants are scored based on tricks and skills of endurance.
There are even World Championships in Canada, for anyone interested in competing!
Blobbing
Blobbing is a little like air kicking. However, instead of a water jet to propel you into the water, you have a friend (or enemy) jump on one end of the airbag while you sit on the other.
Again, this may not seem too much like an extreme sport, but I can assure you, your adrenalin will be pumping throughout the whole experience.
The first blobbers were sailors that jumped from their ships onto a “blob,” which was nothing more than a floating fuel bladder made from a similar material to the blobs you see in the image above.
Cliff Diving
Possibly one of the most simple extreme water sports in the world. There is no equipment, no requirements, and you can do it anywhere where there is, well, a cliff and water. However, is it something that you are going to catch me doing? No, thank you.
Whether it is the rush of adrenaline that you get from jumping off a high cliff and freefalling into the water, or if it is the fantastic locations, either way, it is a highly popular extreme watersport! Perhaps it is an excuse for people to go to those locations? If you do cliff jumping, please let us know!
Extreme Water Sports – Dinghy Racing
It is like gently drifting down the stream on a dinghy, at 9kph. Except it is a lot faster and a lot more dangerous. Traveling up to 90kph, these racers from the RedBull team in Australia certainly take the dinghy to the max.
Narrowly missing trees, branches, reeds, and rocks, and sometimes not missing them, makes this sport one of the most dangerous extreme water motorsports in the world.
Flyboarding
Did you ever dream of owning a hoverboard like Marty from Back To The Future? Well, sadly, you can’t, yet. However, flyboarding is undoubtedly the next best thing.
High-pressure water is responsible for another of the extreme water sports again. However, instead of coming from a static machine, the water for the flyboard comes from a jetski. A 55ft hose will allow you to rise into the sky on a jet of water, up to 40 feet in the air! However, it certainly feels like a lot higher when your legs are not attached to anything but a supercharged garden hose!
Extreme Water Sports – Freediving
Unlike cave diving, free diving has a lot less equipment to go wrong. However, I am not sure if that’s a good thing or not!
Freediving was something reserved for people to collect food in ancient times. However, the neglection of equipment to go diving with has quickly become an extreme sport. You may not think this is extreme either. But think, the world record is 831 feet deep with a single breath. Even a tenth of that would get your heart going!
Kitesurfing
A mixture of surfing and kite-flying, kitesurfing can be a super fast-paced form of kiteboarding. Similar to wakeboarding, windsurfing, paragliding, all sorts of sports, kite surfing is one of the extreme water sports that you may see quite often at the beach.
The critical difference between kitesurfing and kiteboarding is that surfing has no straps to connect you to the board. That makes it a lot more challenging to keep all of your equipment with you!
Although kitesurfing will undoubtedly raise your heart rate, the people who partake in this activity are usually chilled out. That is probably because they use all of their energy holding onto the parachute style kite above their heads!
Surfing
If the image of the surfer above does not send chills down your spine, thinking he was lucky that wave didn’t hit him, then you probably surf yourself.
So many people hear about surfers all of the time that it rarely classes as an extreme water sport. However, having 13 million, million tonnes of water behind you waiting to crush you like you do not even exist, makes the idea pretty extreme.
Wakeboarding
If letting the wind pull you along wasn’t enough, perhaps you should make a motorboat do it for you.
Bind yourself to the board, send off the motorboat at silly speeds, and do tricks in the wake. Or fall over and drink the lake. I know what I would be doing.
Wakeboarding started as wake surfing in 1964 when surfers wanted an alternative to surfing when the sea was calm up popped wakeboarding. Popularity has grown so much that this is another sport often not called one of the extreme water sports.
Extreme Water Sports – Whitewater Rafting
Here is an idea for you. Jump in a boat, find the rockiest, white water hill that you can, and throw yourself down it. Sound like fun? Many people do. I can guarantee one thing, though; you will be exhilarated at the bottom of the hill, mountain, river, whatever you throw yourself down!
Well, it is the last of the extreme water sports on this list, so if you haven’t found anything that you like the idea of yet, you will have to wait till our next installment.
Conclusion
That’s all of the Extreme Water Sports for this article. There are certainly more; however, we will cover those in other, separate articles, so make sure that you keep an eye out on our extreme sports section.
Please leave a comment below if you have any other suggestions that you think would fit in here. Also, let us know if you have tried any of the sports from this list.
