Tag Archives: Water recreation

Amusing Monday: Taking a wild ride on (or in) a killer whale or shark

I didn’t know anyone made a high-speed watercraft that resembles a killer whale until I saw Freeze List’s new video “8 Insane Water Toys that Everyone Must Try” (second video on this page).

This killer whale is built like a small aerodynamic submarine and is about the size of a real killer whale. It can race along on the surface, dive underwater, roll to the left or right, and even breach up into the air, as the operator adjusts aircraft-style controls.

The Killer Whale Y Model is one of three models of Seabreacher watercraft manufactured by Innespace Productions, based in New Zealand. The other two models are the smaller Shark X Model and the latest Dolphin Z Model, a revision of the first design.

If the videos of a speedy killer whale machine are not amusing enough, Seabreacher has produced a few oddball videos involving the watercraft. Check out the list at the end of this post.

The killer whale model is a two-seater with 360-degree viewing from within an enclosed canopy. It runs on a Rotax 1500-cc, four-stroke 260-horsepower motor. Features include a large whale tail, pectoral fins and a functioning blowhole.

As SeaWorld and other marine parks cease their killer whale performances — in which people often ride on the backs of live orcas — this manufactured whale can be built with grab handles and foot pegs to allow trained stunt people to do acrobatic feats on the outside of the machine.

Three years ago, writer Rohit Jaggi climbed into one of the Seabreacher cockpits on Shasta Lake near Redding, Calif. His goal was to write an article for the Financial Times of London. Riding with him was Rob Innes, a New Zealand boat builder who teamed up years ago with machinist Dan Piazza to create Innespace Productions.

“Drive it like you stole it,” Innes advised the reporter. “You can’t break it.”

“Obediently, I pull very hard on one of the two vertical levers in my hands, push on the other, and we switch instantly from a … straight line to a carving, steep turn to the left,” Rohit writes. “Keeping my right index finger tight on the trigger throttle, I reverse the positions of the levers and we are thrown into a tight right curve, banked so far over that water breaks over the transparent bubble canopy above our heads….

“I take a few minutes to dial my responses in, but it is not long before I am, indeed, driving it like I stole it… Rushing forward, planing on the lateral fins, I push the two levers forward and a wall of water rises swiftly up and over the canopy until the Seabreacher is underwater. All that remains above the surface is the midship-mounted vertical fin, which contains a snorkel for the engine air intake, slicing through the water at up to 40 kph.” (That’s about 25 miles per hour under water, or about half the maximum surface speed.)

The third video, at right, shows TV news reporter Avijah Scarbrough of KHSL in Los Angeles taking a spin on Shasta Lake, where Rob Innes has opened a division of Innespace.

Innespace Productions started in 1997 with a focus on high-performance submersible watercraft. More than 10 years of engineering and testing went into the Seabreacher models, which are custom built with a variety of options. Typical costs are between $80,000 and $100,000, according to “Frequently Asked Questions” posted on the company’s website.

One promotional video shows 109 different looks created for the three models, although some may have been shown more than once. I advise you to use the pause button to take a closer look at these machines. A large collection of related videos can be found on the Innespace Seabreacher Channel on YouTube.

A few amusing (or perhaps silly?) videos featuring the Seabreacher:

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Amusing Monday: Dog sprays man and other fun with a garden hose

It isn’t the rare man-bites-dog story, but a humorous dog-sprays-man video has created a major buzz on the Internet since it was posted last week on YouTube and Facebook. Watch as the speedy dog chases his owner around the yard with a garden hose.

AFV Animals, a website affiliated with the television show America’s Funniest Home Videos, posted the video, and lots of people passed it on, adding their own headlines. Among them were: “Revenge-seeking dog drenches owner with hose” and “This dog demands that his owner stay hydrated in the summer heat.”

It turns out that the video was shown on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” back in 2007, when the announcer made this comment, “Max is a little bitter that he is not a Dalmatian with a swanky firehouse gig.”

I understand the notion of a dog getting revenge, after reviewing dozens of videos in which the dog’s owner sprays his pet with a jet of water. The dogs seem to love it, and it becomes a game between the human hose-bearer and the canine on the other end.

Check out these videos:

Kids get into the act in many videos. These are possibly my favorites:

The video that went viral last week is not the only one showing a dog using a hose to chase a man. In fact, one video, posted by FunnyFuse in 2010, seems to be less staged than the one that launched this blog post. You can hear the camera operator laughing and asking at the end, “Is this payback for all the time we sprayed her with a hose?”

What can a bear do with a garden hose? See “Water torture! Brown bear teases dog with hosepipe.”

And we must not mention dogs without offering at least one cat video. That’s exactly the number of videos I could find showing cats having fun playing in water. Chloe posted a video last year called “Funny Cat Playing With Water Hose” (video player below), along with the following comments on her YouTube Channel Clover Rose:

“I recently discovered that my cat likes to play with the water that comes out of my garden hose. He gets really wet after playing with the water. He hates getting wet, but he doesn’t seem to care if the hose wets him. I think he only likes to get wet on his terms.”

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