Editing Riverboarding (section)

== Origins ==
Riverboarding is believed to have originated in the late 1970s. It is claimed to have originated in France, where raft guides stuffed a burlap mail sack with life vests and went down rapids.<ref>[http://www.frogz.co.nz/ Frogz White Water Sledging]</ref>  Soon, riders adapted a personal submarine shell for their molds, and the plastic version of the riverboard was born. Sometime in the 1980s, Robert Carlson began running [[river]]s in [[California, U.S.A.]] using an ocean [[bodyboard]]. Soon after he modified this design to be thicker, longer, with four handles. Later in 1986, Ged Hay began taking his body board down the [[Kawarau River]] near [[Queenstown, New Zealand|Queenstown]] while on his days off as a rafting guide.

European riders also developed a foam version (called a hydrospeed) of the plastic board to reduce weight and avoid injuring each other during collisions that sometimes resulted from one rider travelling downstream and another facing upstream while surfing a hydraulic.  Today, homemade foam hydrospeeds are found primarily among European riders.  A growing sport in North America, riverboarding has grown in popularity from media exposure and the emergence of commercial operators running riverboard trips.