Riverhead drafts rules to regulate flyboarding

Riverhead officials are considering new code provisions to regulate flyboarding, a water sport brought to Riverhead by James Bissett IV at the Treasure Cove Marina on East Main Street.

The town is looking to impose a ban on the sport within 500 feet of the shoreline, which the operator of Long Island’s only flyboarding attraction opposes. Bissett currently takes flyboarders to a sheltered area of the river just east of the marina for instructional and flight sessions.

Responding to noise and other complaints from neighbors and expressing concern about the safety of flyboarders being propelled into the air in proximity to the marina’s docks, town officials want Flyboard LI to operate “in the open waters of the bay,” according to Supervisor Sean Walter.

The Riverhead bay constable has issued Bissett 25 summonses as of yesterday, citing him for violating a town code provision that prohibits waterskiiing within 500 feet of the shoreline.

But Flyboard LI doesn’t want to move offshore.

Flyboarding in the bay would be much more dangerous, Bryan DeLuca, executive director of the company that runs the aquarium, hotel and marina, said in an interview yesterday.

“How is flyboarding with motor boats passing you going 50 mph safer than in this protected area?” DeLuca asked. “And being that far out, God forbid there is a problem and someone gets hurt,” he said.

DeLuca said the company — founded by Bissett’s late father and partner Joe Petrocelli — is “trying to build a resort destination” in downtown Riverhead. The fyboarding operation, like parasailing, is best done close to the resort’s center, where visitors can watch it, DeLuca said.

DeLuca asked the town to look at a temporary code put in place by the state of Maryland this year specifically to address flyboarding. He says the Maryland code, the first of its kind in the country, is well-researched and all-encompassing. He distributed copies of the Maryland code to the town board and town attorney.

The Maryland code requires a minimum 100-foot distance in all directions from all structures, vessels and people in the water. It also requires a minimum water depth of 6 feet.

“But Sean [Walter] didn’t even want to look at it,” DeLuca said.

DeLuca and Bissett attended yesterday’s town board work session, where the proposed town code revision was on the agenda for discussion. But Walter did not allow either man to participate in the discussion or address the board on the subject.

“I don’t have the opportunity to say anything here?” DeLuca asked.

“You will at the public hearing,” Walter answered.

DeLuca and Bissett walked out of the meeting.

The draft code revisions discussed by the Riverhead Town Board yesterday would expand the section currently pertaining to waterskiing to address flyboarding, wakeboarding and parasailing as “regulated water sports.” All such activities would be banned within any “channel system,” within 100 feet of any swimmer or bather, within a 100-foot radius of any other vessel, and within 500 feet of any shoreline, dockage, pier or wharf.

The 500-foot rule is completely arbitrary, DeLuca said in an interview afterward. “It’s based on what? Two neighbors complaining?”

He said he is perplexed by the town’s actions in light of officials’ stated desire to make downtown Riverhead a tourist destination. Flyboard LI is the only flyboarding attraction on Long Island and it has drawn tourists to downtown Riverhead from all over the region, he said.

DeLuca says the noise from the flyboarding operation is “quieter than a lawnmower” and it does not create a wake that affects the shore. “There’s barely a ripple,” he said.

But some Howell Lane residents, whose homes dot the shoreline of the cove where Bissett operates, have repeatedly complained to the town about noise from the operation and muck from the riverbed being stirred up.

“The drone of the motor is constant hum all day broken up by moments of deceleration and acceleration, like your neighbor revving his car all day,” Howell Lane resident Glenn Brewster told RiverheadLOCAL earlier this month. “The constant stirring of the bottom of the river from the water jet actually stinks — pretty bad at times,” he said. And the muck washes up onto docked boats, pilings and the shoreline, he said.