Jaunted

'Zorb New England' is, from press reports, behind the local Lost Valley operators.

'Zorb New England' an operation with principals that have been using various identity theft strategies to acquire our name. These people were unmasked by the Wikipedia community when they attempted to added their 'operation' to the Wikipedia entry relating to Zorb.

Various fake operators unfortunately have websites divert traffic from legitimate enquires about us to sites that pretend to be associated with us. Included are Complex Plastics (a front for a fake Chinese copy) OGo, Downhill Momentum and others. While we have an active program of trying to close down fake operators many are brazen about taking on others identities for a quick profit. Unfortunately, like with fakes, not only the authentic operator/manufacturer is harmed but also consumers that are ripped of and in this case injured by the fake operators.

'Zorb New England', like these others, has nothing to do with Zorb Limited or New Zealand (the inventor of the Zorb) and its wholly owned subsidiary Zorb Smoky Mountains Inc of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

The operation in Lost Valley is not known to us and unfortunately this accident is the first we have heard of their operation.

As for the operators, please be aware that there is no excuse that they thought that they were dealing with us. If they try to make that excuse, that they thought they were dealing with us a quick search would have provided many links to show that was not the case. We answer queries about rogue and fake operators all the time, but some intending operators do not approach us because we operate with a high level of safety investment under a franchise model and have a reputation as being sticklers for developing safe sites.

As the inventors of the Zorb and the sport we have had 100,000's of customers safely enjoy the experience over our 13 years of operation and there is only ONE Zorb site in USA, our site in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (see www.zorb.com)

That site has taken over 2 years and several millions of dollars to construct to ENSURE a safe adrenalin experience can be enjoyed by the public.

Being aware of the emerging copy operations and being concerned at the attitude of these operators we published a Code of Safe operation. The Code contains advice to operators on safety in the hope of avoiding just this situation. We supply to anyone who asks - these fakes operators would have known as we have sent the code to their operator in Amesbury but they have not only not asked but clearly are not operating safely.

The Zorb experience is safe. It is safe because we have strict safety standards, we work with local authorities before we open, obey the law and obtain the correct permits and are insured.

We do not have our devices bouncing in the air. We are horrified to read that they were using posts with hay. Our Code specifically refers in several places to using berms rather than posts. Anything that results in the sphere impacting against a surface during the run is avoided. Our runs allow our devices (which we manufacture and are very different from the Chinese copies) to run forward through sloping berms. Common sense would tell any operator that allowing that allowing that to happen is just plain gross negligence. Furthermore:

1. our devices have "zipdoors" to ensure that the rider is not endangered by the risk of a limb getting caught in the entry tunnel. The fakes we have seen to date have no zipdoors and are unlikely to do so as, while the door looks simple, this development involved considerable R&D and is not easily copied;
   
2. our devices are made of TPU rather than cheap PVC which is used in the fakes. This is important as TPU is rip resistant (and also as a recyclable polymer does not contain the harmful chemicals (plasticizers and the like) found in PVC.

In establishing our site in America we worked closely with the City of Pigeon Forge over several years to get the site safely established.

Our site relies on contoured landforms to ensure the devices roll safely forward and do not ever 'bounce'.

We are a research driven company and have always taken extreme care in designing the ride experience so that it is safe.

Unfortunately our success has resulted in cheap, unsafe devices being manufactured in China and sold by unscrupulous operators that, despite our sharing our safety code, do not take the time or care to ensure that they understand what it takes to run a safe operation.

The reason why we delayed entry into the US for so many years was that our Board directed that we were not to operate in the market unless we were able to obtain full insurance from a highly reputable insurer. That involved us in safety audits and producing statistics on our operations covering many years.

If we can be of any further assistance please contact me or Sofia Zerboni (currently handling the calls to my US cell)

Finally, we would appreciate it if the press does not use the term 'Zorb' to describe the sport activity.

Zorb is a registered trademark of Zorb Limited.

Zorb is registered in the US and many countries around the world.

We would ask that the term plastic sphere or globe be used to describe the fake device and "globe riding" be used to describe the activity..