Now, lets get one thing straight. What these jet propelled beasties are actually called......Personal Water Craft (PWC) is pretty much official. Reason being, that's exactly what they are. As for the term "Jet-Ski". This is actually the model name that Kawasaki gave their craft way back when... Also I've heard the terms "jet-bike" and "wet-bike" used. Fair enough, "wet bike" is not only accurate (ish) but it's the term mostly used in the earlier days, as for "jet-bike" these have wheels, go really fast on tarmac and scare the life out of people at places like Santa Pod. Personal Water Craft are either stand-up or sit-down version. Of course Sea-Doo have got one in the middle called the 3D, you can change the configuration of this to suit your mood and water conditions.

The "jet" part of the propulsion is quite simple, the water is sucked from under the craft through an intake grate and passed through a nozzle which reduces in diameter out to the rear of the craft. The result is similiar to putting your finger partly over the end of a hose, you get a back pressure which creates a "jet". Of course you're more than welcome to find out the true technicalities of it all. But I'm not going to sit and type it!!

Ours is a Sea Doo GTX 4-tec. It's a 3 cylinder 4-stroke petrol engined craft with an output of 155bhp. It'll do about 65 on flat water and has pretty good acceleration. It's a couple of years old and has quite a high usage on the clock (measured in hours) but it runs like new and has been well looked after. As it's a four stroke, we get good fuel economy, it doesn't pollute and it's quiet. Also the maintanance is minimal.

As you can see from the picture left, the craft has a very shallow draft. This is achieved through having the impeller inboard to power the craft as opposed to having a propeller outside and below. Whilst idle only 18-24" is required, some lighter sportier craft require less. However, all craft are affected by the weight of the rider !

All content on this site is Copyright © 2010 Simon Davey, unless otherwise stated. Contact Me