A Quick History of the Personal Watercraft
October 23rd, 2009 by Kurt RaggetSnaking on the waters with your personal watercraft is a great experience. The ride alone gives you a heightened sense of excitement. But have the thought of the personal watercraft's history came to your mind? If not, then just read on and add some personal watercraft knowledge into your memory bank.
In the late sixties, the Bombardier family thought of a concept vehicle that would soon become the core of an extremely exciting and competitive industry. What the Bomvardier family wanted was a vehicle that would resemble the famed Ski-Doo snowmobile but would run on water. Being a family who spent their summers on and around the lakes of the Laurentian region of Quebec, the Bombardier household would sensibly have a certain liking towards water sports.
In a move to realize their goals, the Bombardier family approached vehicle engineer Clayton Jacobsen II. Jacobsen happened to be planning to initiate a similar project, a motorcycle-like vehicle that can be driven on water. The two parties joined their heads and their resources to create the first ever personal watercraft.
Jacobsen initially started with a stand-up design. However, Bombardeir wanted to go for a model that allows the rider to sit while handling the vehicle. Starting with an 18-hp Rotax engine provided by the Bombardier Family, Jacobsen went to complete the sit-down design of his machine.
In 1968, the Bombardier family and Jacobsen were able to pull of a successful series of tests and soon announced the birth of the Sea-Doos (a play on the name of Bombardiers famous snowmobile line). Bombardier then updated the engine and integrated it with a liquid cooling mechanism after a year. The move was an update of Jacobsen's design, which was basically cooled by air intake. But soon, the Bombardier family gave up on the project as they failed to solve mechanical issues as other problems with the engine.
Jacobsen tried to convince the Bombardier company to go on with project. He insisted that the models needed to be tweaked and adjustments should be made like integrating rubber components and waterproofing the body. Jacobsen's suggestions were ignored by Bombardier and the project was shelved.
Jacobsen, determined to finished what he started, bought the rights of the patent and presented the design to Kawasaki in 1971. With some tweaks of the initial design by Jacobsen, Kawasaki was able to create a better, more practical variant of the personal watercraft. In 1973, Kawasaki introduced the Jet Ski, the first commercial personal watercraft. Today, the term Jet Ski means all types of water crafts, even though Kawasaki Motors is the registered owner of the trademark.
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