There is quite a bit of planning that goes into a huge power sport tour series. The team of tour officials must heavily coordinate the activities and dates and work with state and local officials for securing event spots.

In some cases for whatever reason, the event dates must be revised. Such is the case with Powerboat Nationals who recently announced a few changes to their 2019 schedule and global championship date.

It seems that all changes were accommodated with relative ease in this case and now everyone is on the same page for the 2019 schedule. Also joining the fun for this season will be the new ProSpark and ProSport series. This should make for an exciting year.

For confirmation on all changes, check out the press release below: 

(Columbus, OH) Powerboat Nationals announced today that changes have been made to its 2019 schedule and season-ending Global Championship weekend in Naples, Florida.

The event at Sugden Regional Park, which was originally scheduled for later in October, has been moved up to Columbus Day weekend. Powerboat Nationals’ 2019 Global Championship at Florida’s Paradise Coast will now be held October 12–13, 2019.

In addition to the ProTunnel 1 and ProTunnel 2 series racing in Naples, Powerboat Nationals has added Hydro-Cross to the schedule. The ProSport (SportGP/Spec) and ProSpark (Runabout Rec Lite) series will be joining the fun and concluding their 2019 seasons on Lake Avalon.

Powerboat Nationals also made a change to the 2019 Hydro-Cross schedule moving their November 11-12 racing event in Tavares, Florida to earlier in 2019. The ProSport and ProSpark seasons will now start on April 6-7 in Tavares. This change allows for all four Powerboat Nationals racing series to conclude their 2019 schedule on Global Championship weekend in Naples.

“We thank everyone with Collier County and Florida’s Paradise Coast for their help with the schedule change,” said Powerboat Nationals Managing Director, Dan Bunting. “Everyone should be making plans now to join us at the season finale in Naples as this year’s Global Championship event at Sugden is going to be epic.

Complete, updated 2019 race schedules for the PT1, PT2 and HX series are available on Powerboat Nationals’ Facebook and Twitter pages.

Powerboat Nationals is a national touring series that provides world-class tunnel hull powerboat and jet ski/PWC racing on rivers and lakes across North America. Their racing will be seen on nine television networks in 2019 to include the national motorsports channel, MAVTV. For more information, please visit www.powerboatnationals.com.

Coming back for Spring 2019, Sea-Doo demo rides will be offered again. So what’s the catch? Well it’s not a national demo tour and it will only be offered on select dates, but other than that, there are no gimmicks.

If you remember from last year, we did a re-cap of the Sea-Doo demo rides offered through Lake Norman Powersports at Lake Norman in the greater Charlotte, North Carolina area. Well for 2019 they are back.

There will be two separate boat shows in April. The tentative dates will be April 6 at Peninsula Yacht Club followed by April 13 at King Point Marina on Lake Norman. Both shows will offer free demo rides on select new Sea-Doo models.

All demo rides are free and offered to the general public so anybody is welcome to come. For this year Lake Norman Powersports will be working with Sea-Doo in attempts to get factory demo models.

In past years, the demo units were strictly floor models, which were for sale so this sometimes limited the inventory that was available to ride. At the show you will also be able to check out and demo Scarab jet boats as well as other dealer models. Details are still being worked out so stay tuned for further information.

Slowly but surely The Pro Watercross has been announcing tour dates for the different series of events. Official tour dates are now posted and while there are still a few pending location announcements, the official event schedule has been released.

That’s right; get your skis ready and pencil in those dates because this year the National Tour will feature up to seven packed events throughout the country with numerous event locations in each tour category.

You can check out the full release and dates below. For all the latest information be sure to visit prowatercross.com.

Pro Watercross is proud to announce the official event schedule for the 2019 season.
2019 PRO WATERCROSS NATIONAL TOUR

• May 4-5, 2019-Pensacola Beach, FL
• May 11-12, 2019-TBA – Florida
• June 1-2, 2019- TBA
• June 8-9, 2019-TBA
• July 13-14, 2019-Racine, WI
• July 27-28, 2019-Lavonia, GA (Lake Hartwell)
• August 10-11, 2019-National Championship
• Oct 26 – Nov 3, 2019-World Championships-Naples, FL

The Pro Watercross National Tour will feature of up to seven jam-packed events starting in May through November, ending with its World Championships in Naples, Florida. “Pro Watercross has become the largest and most popular watercross series in the country and this season’s schedule will continue to bring growth to the sports, thanks to a great group of tour partners and host cities with fans all looking forward to our watercross race events,” said Jennifer Handler, CIO of Pro Watercross.

We apologize for the delay in the release of the tour dates; Pro Watercross is reorganizing its business strategies, this will enable us to better serve our athletes, sponsors, host cities and fans…

We look forward to a great year of racing and please join Pro Watercross at any of its Grass Roots Racing events or Recreational Tour events this season…

2019 TEXAS H20 RACING

• March 2-3, 2019-Lake Fairview, Orlando, Florida
• April 6-7, 2019-Lake Stuart, Stuart, Florida
• April 27-28, 2019-Orange, Texas
• June29-30, 2019-Marine Creek Lake, Fort Worth, Texas
• August 17-18, 2019-TBA
• December 7-8, 2019-TBA – Florida

2019 GREAT LAKES WATERCROSS

• Coming soon…

2019 NATIONAL RECREATION TOUR

• January 17-20, 2019- Daytona Freeride-Daytona Beach, Florida
• April 12-14, 2019-Wave Daze-Virginia Beach, Virginia
• May 18-19, 2019-Dunedin Invasion-Dunedin, Florida
• June 15, 2019-Operation JET-EX-TBD
• July 6, 2019-Strong Island Poker Run-Freeport, New York
• August 3, 2019- Broward MTS Rec Ride-Key Largo, Florida
• September 7. 2019-JetFest-Mayfield, New York

2019 WEST COAST RECREATIONAL RIDES TOUR

• March 9, 2019-Ironman Ride-Chula Vista, California
• April 12-13, 2019-Pirates Cove-Needles, California
• May 16-19, 2019-Down on the Delta-Brentwood, California
• September 14-22, 2019- Lake Powell to Rock Creek-Page, Arizona
• October 11, 2019-Ultimate Ride-Lake Havaus, Arizona

2019 MID-WEST RECREATIONAL EVENTS

• May 30-June 2, 2019-Jet Blast-Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin
• August 10, 2019-Brave the Wave-Lake Orion, Michigan
• August 22-24, 2019-Twin City Jet Pilot Sortie-Lake City, Minnesota

2019 US OPEN TOUR | HYDROFLIGHT & SUPXROSS

• June 22-23, 2019-Erie, PA
• July – TBA
• Aug 31-September 1, 2019-National Championships-Washington, DC
• Oct 26 – Nov 3, 2019-World Championships-Naples, Florida

All of us here at The Watercraft Journal are pretty big fans of what Randy Cabrera and team at the Florida Ski Riders have been up to. The Florida-based riding group has managed to rise above the mayhem and build an organization that is inclusive to all types of riding. Best of all, they’ve shown incredible professionalism; building relationships with major companies like RIVA Racing, local powersports dealers and even major manufacturers. It’s something you typically don’t see with a PWC club.

For 2019, Cabrera and crew have launched a whole new “invasion tour” that will welcome riders from all over the state of Florida (it is a statewide organization, after all). These invasion rides tend to be pretty popular, so it’s wise to plan ahead, get the site early and be prepared for a huge party.

To help keep a bit of cohesiveness with its group rides, Florida Ski Riders also has a surprisingly vast array of riding apparel (much more than we do!). They’ll even customize a riding jersey so that it’ll carry your name and print in colors to best match your own personal watercraft! It’s pretty cool stuff.

They wrote recently, “Have you gotten your gear for the Invasions? Make sure you go to www.flskiriders.com and order your apparel. I’ve seen those looks when people see those awesome FL Ski Riders Shirts. Then they ask where can I get one of those? I know it happened to me. Well just go to the site and order it. www.flskiriders.com.”

We’ve all seen. Heck, you might’ve even poked a little fun at the poor soul trying unsuccessfully to launch their personal watercraft by themselves at the ramp. In fact, watching folks make fools out of themselves at launch ramps is considering an entertaining afternoon around Lake Havasu (seriously, people line up alongside the launches just to critique others ability – or lack thereof – when it comes to launching their boat or ski).

The technically-minded gurus at 3ftDeep, an ongoing video series filmed out of White Rock, BC, Canada, threw together a very quick and easy to follow guide on successfully launching a full-sized Sea-Doo RXT 260 all by his lonesome. Interestingly there were a few tips that we here at the The Watercraft Journal hadn’t considered before, and are looking forward to giving them a try the next time we hit the water (in a day or two).

While this how-to won’t help you become better at backing up a trailer, or gauging how deep you need to submerge the back of your car into the lake (hint: not at all), this video does look to make life easier and shorten the time it takes between getting to the launch to boarding your ski for some fun out on the water.

For such a simple-looking piece of equipment, the impeller (“prop”) of your personal watercraft packs a bunch of innovation. Similar to selecting the proper rear differential gearing for your performance automobile, developing the correct pitch for a prop is just as important to both your personal watercraft’s initial acceleration, planing speed and finally, achieving a desirable top speed.

In a recently uploaded video, RIVA Racing’s own Dave Bamdas walks through the key features in a performance impeller, RIVA’s long-standing relationship with industry mainstay SOLAS, and how both brands work together to create custom pitched impellers to best fit RIVA’s specific performance packages. According to RIVA, increases to low-end thrust and top end speed are all tied directly to the power entering – and in this case, exiting – your jet pump.

And deciding on a pitch has much more to do with engine RPMs. As per Bamdas, “weight, performance attributes, horsepower gains, construction materials, pitches, blade configurations, and more” all play central roles in developing a proper impeller. For more information, visit the SOLAS Impeller section at RIVA Racing here.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that this video is from the 2016 Blowsion Freeride – not this most recent one that happened a couple of weeks ago. But with Daytona on our minds, we wanted to turn back the clock and revisit one of our favorite bits of video footage from the first days when Krash Industries introduced their RTP (Ready to Perform) series of 50 CAL, Reaper and Predator skis.

The video does a great job capturing the spirit of the Daytona Freeride as well as the stoke shared by Krash Industries’ owner Nick Barton, as well as then-Krash Army riders Zack and Jake Bright, and Chris Grace. The RTP lineup has only gotten better, and priced at a super-entry level $12,000 regardless of hull/deck or color, they’re the perfect segue into the world of freeride and just jet skiing in general.

Here’s the original caption for the video when it went live in 2016, “Videographer Dan Mizicko gets behind the scenes at this past Daytona Beach Freeride 2016 and truly encapsulates the camaraderie and lifestyle among members of the Jet Ski community. Closely following Krash Industries owner Nick Barton, professional team riders Zack Bright, Jake Bright and Chris Grace, as well as team mechanics Joe Grace and Jonathan Denham, you really get a sense of how much it means to be a member of the Krash Army.”

https://www.facebook.com/krashindustries/videos/1350229201669965/?hc_ref=ARR_z7zU62oCe33NzTYL9NYTZJHzi2r33EKcDx0Hex_C66TU-MKqwodEZqWU1VHufpQ&__xts__[0]=68.ARDt1g4hIegIHzY-o8Y7G2qlJB-L7rJJje-3wVInla2Z3jGeiBsGnaNgpkGG1q7ahYc1QBavyOM_L6eBDlsTpXLoD6jEbJWPqtZ55twn1VPJlmpAy-naovTF6AbNdhmVfpyT7FuUqoR_mvVPhnXZhVr_3HAzFOIrM4fmkLEkR7_J7_n-zewmj07KuxDdrrqZrWVtwU4uVYZeJJ_ODZ23fdbzmOaDRg__vBqaCrAaFTUzMzl8VQBLJbrGba1ohVhhzcIjF05RuV7pHK_NEoTvP-U-sB2OyLRLQK7Xv03UX4KKnwI_WraLrZf1ZIB-yWdNtiXz53orNfYOThavJCmslxp-IvhPBI6uqU_EXRwfOKSrfT-3p0bG8q6l_A&__tn__=FC-R

It’s a song that we at The Watercraft Journal have been singing for a while now; the PWC industry is really banging on all eight cylinders – particularly when it comes to new vehicle sales. For 2018, the worldwide sales reached over 63,000 units sold. Why that’s a far cry from the heyday years of 100,000 new units sold in 1995, over sixty-thousand is a tremendous feat considering that we were seeing numbers as low as the 20’s just 8 years ago.

While we mainly keep a close watch on how the industry is growing here in the US, we were excited to learn (and share) that new personal watercraft sales in the United Kingdom have reached a 10-year high. And it’s not just a flash in the pan, either; UK new unit sales are increasing by 14-percent, which puts 2019 on track to either meet or exceed 2008’s record sales of 1,780 new units sold. Now that is something to get excited about!

In a recent Facebook post, the Personal Watercraft Partnership (PWP) wrote: “Ski sales approach 2008 record levels. Some great industry news to share. 2018 witnessed 14% YOY increase in sales of skis. That’s 1,526 compared to 1,341 in 2017. In 2008 a record 1,780 were sold. What will 2019 bring?”