If you’ve seen some of those cool jet-powered “foil” boards zipping around your local marina and thought, “Hey, I’d look good doing that”, you’re probably wrong.
The standard boards are more than a bit tippy and it takes a great sense of balance and maybe some previous experience on a surfboard to ride them in anything but dead flat water.
Enter the FliteScooter, which is a jet-powered foil with handlebars.
Just stand up on it, grab the handles and push the throttle forward with your thumb. Zip, it rises up out of the water and you’re off to the races.
And race it does, at up to 27 knots according to the Australian manufacturer. Converted to mph, 27 knots is about 31 mph, which is pretty fast when you’re zipping along on a one-person board a couple feet off the water. They don’t list the range.
The board runs on a rechargeable lithium battery, and the company says the whole thing including the digital controls in the handlebar is completely waterproof, as it would have to be.
It’s a fairly expensive water toy, at $12,995, but hey, it would definitely look good on the swim platform of your yacht.
Here are the specs:
LOA: 7ft / 2.13m
Beam: 2ft 11in / 0.88m
Mast height: 2ft / 0.6m
Top speed: 27 knots