Dale's Jet Sports
(972) 530-6768 fax (972)
530-5305
6301 Industrial Lane
Sachse, Texas 75048
dale@dalesjetsports.com
kat@dalesjetsports.com
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The personal watercraft (PWC) concept originated in the
1960s when a home inventor conceived and built his notion of a powered water
ski. This design combined the elements of self-power, small size, and a
maneuverable, active ride. Bombardier Recreational Products , known for
its Ski-Doo® snowmobiles, introduced a craft in the late 1960s with limited
success. This craft gets credit for being the first sit-down style PWC.
In the early 1970s, Kawasaki Motors Corp. U.S.A. introduced the JET SKI®
watercraft, the first commercially successful PWC. PWC are considered by the U.S. Coast Guard to be inboard boats under 16 feet in length. They are powered by either a 2-stroke gasoline engine (the same basic engine type which is found in most outboard motors), or by a 4-stroke gasoline engine, the same engine type used in cars. The engine drives a jet pump that draws water from the bottom of the craft into an impeller (a type of propeller fitted into a surrounding "tunnel"), which pressurizes the water and forces it out a nozzle at the rear of the craft. It is this jet of pressurized water that propels and steers the craft when the throttle is engaged. New off-throttle steering technology offers personal watercraft users increased maneuverability when the throttle is disengaged. There are five major companies currently active in the personal watercraft market. In the mid-1980s, Kawasaki's JET SKI watercraft was joined by Yamaha Motor Corp. U.S.A.'s line of WaveRunner® models, which truly began the change in market emphasis from the stand-up style PWC to a sit-down style with one- or two-person capacities. Shortly after, Bombardier Recreational Products re-joined the market with their Sea-Doo® line. In the early 1990s, snowmobile giant Polaris Industries Inc. joined the PWC market, and in 2002 American Honda began selling PWC, the AquaTrax®. Along the way, two-person craft quickly took over from the single person style, and today three- and four-person family models are showing the strongest growth. Multiple-person family craft currently make up more than 97 percent of personal watercraft sales. Source PWIA The original runabout PWC's were timid by today's performance standards with the earliest Sea-Doo® model 320 coming equipped with an air-cooled 320cc single cylinder engine. Interestingly, the jet pump was belt driven. Peak speed from this one cylinder wonder was estimated at a blazing 25 to 30 mph, depending upon water conditions. The successor to the model 320, the model 372 was introduced the following year with a water cooled 368cc twin cylinder that topped out close to 35mph!
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