water sports

Now that looks like fun. Of course we intuitively know it's completely fake, and involves the usual videographic sleight of hand, but let's apply some basic physics to the situation to check our intuition.

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Whitewater kayaking is virtually an aerial sport, with paddlers in freestyle competitions performing tricks like airscrew — barrel rolls above a rapid. The lighter your kayak, the higher you can go, so instead of conventional polyethylene plastic, Wave Sport turned to composite materials for its 54 Cx kayak.

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Now that's a neat little trick. Once again that characteristically Japanese sense of humor gives us an opportunity to glimpse some interesting physics in an entertaining venue. Of course we aren't too surprised to see a water skier plane over the water, or to see a rock skipping esthetically across a placid pond. However, a water slide entry propelling someone into an "unaided" skid across a swimming pool seems a more rare and special event -- even though the physical principles are the same.

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