Slated for December 3rd through the 7th, the 2014 Jet Ski World Cup – better known as the King’s Cup – is fast approaching and is promising to be an exciting week of racing and competition. With athletes converging from around the globe, the rosters are filling up fast to quality and enter. That is why the female duo from Team USA from Full Throttle Flyboard Club, Florida need your help. Nellie Kubalek and Kristen Smoyer are vying for fiscal support to compete in the 2014 Flyboard World Cup held December 4-6 as part of the King’s Cup.
Both athletes have qualified for World Cup competition, representing the USA, they just need help getting there. They’ve started a gofundme campaign to help crowd-source the necessary $4,000 to travel to Dubai and participate in the international showdown. Right now, the ladies are quite a ways away from their goal, so any help is appreciated. The official bios on the two are as follows:
“Nellie Kubalek is a female Professional Flyboarder with over 2 years of dedication, hard work, and perseverance taking this sport to a new level. She dedicates her time to training others, advancing their skill set and educating the world on this new gravity-defying new sport. Nellie was the only female in the USA to qualify for the 2013 Flyboard World Cup. She has been featured in the 2014 AquaX and P1 SuperStock series. Follow Nellie and her flyboard adventures at Flyboarder Nellie Facebook
“Kristen Smoyer is an up and coming new flyboarder. She started flyboarding only 5 months ago and has more than proven herself to reach for the gold! Kristen began this sport as a hobby and quickly evolved in the flyboard world under the coaching and guidance of Nellie Kubalek. Kristen’s favorite trick on the flyboard is a backflip. She dedicates her time in the community working with children and strives to be a role model for young female athletes. This is Kristen’s first time qualifying for the World Cup.”
In the wake of a less than chart-topping IJSBA World Finals in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, there’s been a whole lot of chatter that PWC racing is dead or inconsequential. While the latter is the subject of its own year-long series of in-depth reports, the first is definitely untrue. In fact, the statement is so far off base that The Watercraft Journal has made it a point to help announce every new and exciting format for future PWC racing the first moment we learn of it.
PWC Arena Racing is what it sounds like; personal watercraft racing held on the water of an outdoor arena setting. Arena racetracks are commonly used for high-speed boat races and are primed to be a PWC venue. The arena platform “creates a watercraft-racing format that is visually spectator friendly from the bleachers and easily understood by both the crowd attending the event and the racers competing,” as the official PWC Arena Racing website states. Unlike other shoreline-based events, watercraft racing in a closed arena setting provides an up-close racing experience unlike anywhere else, placing the spectators safely near the action.
Now with an all-new website for both PWC Arena Racing and HydroCross Racing, you can keep up-to-date on all the latest action. But until then, here’s a graph of the proposed 2015 events as well as a quick video on what to expect:
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, while many are looking at these winter months as the time to hang it up and curl up by the fire, the hardcore personal watercraft enthusiasts are getting their shops and garages ready for several months of good old fashioned wrenchin’ and toolin’. Superchargers are being rebuilt, jet pumps are being modified, and handling parts are being tightened down…all to be the fastest, hardest-hitting, and sharpest handling PWC on their lake.
That is why all of us at The Watercraft Journal are so proud to welcome Watcon to its family of supporting advertisers. Supplying all of North America with the very best in performance parts from the most established and highest-acclaimed aftermarket companies in the sport, Watcon is all about increasing the performance of your runabout or jet ski.
We spotted a fun little note over on Dustin Farthing’s Instagram feed that read, “If you’re not planning for 2015, you’re already behind.” And that goes for just about everything. That is why now is the time to hit up Watcon. The one-stop personal watercraft shop, Watcon is a major vendor for RIVA Racing, Western Powersports, Fly Racing, Hot Products and Parts Unlimited, not to mention Original Equipment suppliers for Yamaha, Kawasaki, Sea-Doo, Polaris and Honda.
Owned by Rock County Jet Ski in Janesville, Wisconsin, the RCJS crew can do anything from minor maintenance to full-on custom builds and race machines. Available online, via email or phone, get your hands on all the goods necessary to pump new life in to your PWC today!
First, let it be understood that at temperatures over 414°F, all of the polymer plastics found on today’s modern watercraft would pool in to a puddle of sticky goo, so don’t think that what you’re seeing is strictly a Sea-Doo problem. Be it a Kawasaki, Yamaha or Sea-Doo, blistering temperatures that reduced this GTX 155 into a Salvadore Dali painting, would do the same to any machine.
Yet, many are not as lucky. Tens of thousands of personal watercraft enthusiasts entrust their prized machines to dealerships and jet ski shops to properly winterize and store over the winter months. While there are several benefits to this (recently, The Watercraft Journal wrote a feature article on having your PWC stored by such facilities), it is imperative that you investigate which of these are fully insured for such a disaster.
Of course, and here’s the kicker, the best course of action is to personally insure your personal watercraft. McGraw Insurance‘s Personal Watercraft Package (which includes jet boats under sixteen 16-feet, jet skis, wet bikes, etc.) provides coverage against $15,000 in liability coverage, theft, fire, collision, hull damage, sinking, damage to another watercraft and injury to another person.
Play it safe. Just because your ski isn’t on the water doesn’t mean it can’t get damaged.
For many north of the equator, these are the months to either mothball your personal watercraft as the winter chill makes riding just too unpleasant, or the right time to start wrenching on next year’s project. Meanwhile, to our Australian friends, this is the beginning of summer – and just as important to get your ski running its very best. That is why our pals at Melbourne, Australia’s Diptech Performance are offering some seriously sweet deals on ready-to-run performance kits for all 310-series Ultra Kawasaki JetSkis and all 260-horsepower supercharged Sea-Doos.
While Diptech’s Kawasaki kits are boasting an impressive 15-horsepower jump (making it an even 330HP), it’s Diptech’s Sea-Doo packages that are really making waves. Consisting of RIVA Racing’s a reflashed ECU, an open-element cold air intake, through-hull exhaust with a high-flow waterbox, valve spring retainers, and supercharger rebuild kit, the Sea-Doo kit promises a true 300-horsepower. Of course, all that new found power doesn’t add up to much if you can’t it hook up, so the package includes a trick Solas prop.
Currently, Diptech is cranking out quite a few of these Sea-Doo installations, and understandably so as they’re giving them away at $4,500, but there’s always room for you! And owner/operator Anthony DiPietro also reminded The Watercraft Journal that Diptech is Australia’s number one supplier for Jet Trim seat covers and a major retailer of Jet Pilot products, from riding apparel, race gear and even tubes and water toys!
Starting with a blank sheet and decades of proven modeling experience and techniques, Yamaha sought to completely redesign its bread-and-butter VX Series. The difficulty in doing so meant jeopardizing its position as the single highest-selling personal watercraft ever. The gamble was hedged on the fact that enthusiasts were gravitating towards other models (either within the Yamaha WaveRunner lineup or to other brands) for a greater variety of riding characteristics, advanced technology options and creature comforts.
Drawing much from its larger siblings, the redesigned VX lineup features new sharp, masculine lines that compliment the longer (by 131.5-inches) and wider (48-inches) hull. This increased platform only bumps the overall weight to 730 pounds (dry), still well below comparable units thanks to Yamaha’s featherweight NanoXcel material, but radically alters the way the outgoing VX hull handled.
Yamaha’s new 2015 VX Cruiser is redesigned from bow to keel, with a larger, wider swim platform covered in two-tone Hydro-Turf matting.
Although still retaining a little bit of its looseness in the tail, the new VX is significantly more responsive to both the new fly-by-wire throttle and steering. A new rounder keel, modified strakes and softer chines, coupled with an all-new intake and rideplate help the revised VX to rise to plane faster and slice through chop far more deftly than ever before. At throttle, long sweeping turns are smooth and solid. For shorter, snappier handling, the VX is still very playful and can whip its tail around with a goose of the throttle and a snap of the bars.
Escalating through the whole VX lineup is Yamaha’s 1,052cc four cylinder, 4-stroke Yamaha Marine engine, that is until reaching the VXS and race-ready VXR (that receives Yamaha’s grunting 1.8L High Output engine). Beneath the widened swim platform is a 155mm pump. Running happily on the “cheap stuff” 87 octane all day, the fully-equipped 2015 Yamaha VX Cruiser WaveRunner we tested hardly dented its 18.5 gallon tank even over the over two days we had to familiarize ourselves with the new machine.
The big addition to the redesigned VX lineup is the inclusion of Yamaha’s RiDE dual-throttle system, allowing for immediate braking and easy docking.
In that time we found the new VX Cruiser pleasantly deceptive; it’s less of a swollen VX but a slightly shrunken FX Cruiser. And its not hard to imagine that was Yamaha’s plan all along. Not only taking from the FX’s aesthetic design, the new VX Cruiser is also lushly equipped for what the company still refers to as their “Versatility” models. Swathed in Yamaha’s popular Pure White hue with gold and chrome accents and two-tone Hydro-Turf coffee-and-black traction mats, the Cruiser also comes in Yacht Blue Metallic if so desired.
Storage (like everything else) is bigger too, with 24.6 gallons total including a wrist-deep glove box and a screw-top watertight storage bin tucked beneath the rear passenger, yet another feature previously only found on the FX and FZ series. Yamaha also split the previous one-piece seat into two, making accessing the rear cubby all that much easier. The hood opens and snaps into place, revealing a shallow but wide bow stowage. The aforementioned two-piece Cruiser bench is comfortable, broad at the seat and narrow at the knees.
Available in either Pure White or Yacht Blue Metallic, the VX Cruiser is the most luxurious, well-equipped 3-seater runabout available on the market for less than $10,500.
Obviously, the biggest addition to the VX and the whole Yamaha lineup is the addition of the brand’s new RiDE dual-throttle control system. Unlike Sea-Doo’s iBR, which employs the left trigger as a sort of gear lever, having the driver toggle through reverse bucket positions, the RiDE system is literally a throttle unto itself. Without ever touching the right-hand throttle, a driver can back off of a trailer, spin around and pull alongside a dock using strictly the left-hand RiDE throttle.
Thankfully, Yamaha engineers have balanced the RiDE’s traction-controlled thrust to respond in respect to each vehicle’s weight and power output, meaning the engine’s ECU and BCU will not respond as abruptly as it might with a SVHO-equipped FX Cruiser on a VX Deluxe, and vice versa. Of course, if initiated simultaneously, the left-hand will bring the WaveRunner to a halt by deploying the dual-exit bucket and eventually engage reverse if held down. But, if only gingerly deployed, the reverse bucket can gradually decline, acting more as a buffer than a brake.
Splitting the Cruiser seat into two-parts, Yamaha included a screw-top watertight storage bin in the VX Cruiser that only previously was found with the larger FX and FZ series.
Of course, the other side of the Cruiser coin is the inclusion of Yamaha’s simple-to-navigate Cruiser Assist and No Wake modes. Toggling through speeds is a simple enough task, and although a little slow to respond to initial inputs, setting the cruise control on the fly is easy enough. The new LCD screen is wide and easy to read at speed. And don’t forget the wide and contoured folding swimstep that folds flush to the bond rail.
Par for the course, the VX Cruiser is comfortable, economical and fully-equipped, rightfully earning its place at the top of Yamaha’s Versatility lineup. Priced at $10,299, the VX Cruiser is a marked increase from the outgoing model, but arguably, you’re getting much more machine in exchange for the slight bump in price tag.
The new VX features redesigned digital instrumentation found in a wide, easy-to-read info display.
Well, if that pesky Polar Vortex everybody is freaking out over actually does what is predicted, we might be repeating last year’s rotten (and stupidly long) wintertime. But, seeing that the chilly temps that shut down so many of us in the northern latitudes scantly touched our PWC-loving brethren down in Florida and along Southern California’s coast, there is still plenty of watercraft racking up riding hours. And, like our warmer climate residing friends, we too at The Watercraft Journal will be not dissuaded from mounting up and bringing you some of the best coverage around the States and beyond.
To whit, we are all very, very excited to announce the official partnership between your favorite personal watercraft enthusiast publication, The Watercraft Journal, and America’s coolest outfitter of jet ski fishing apparel, Jet Angler. Not only will you see monthly updates here about all of the awesome deals to be made on sweet swag and gear, but Jet Angler owner, Marc Samulewics is also a contributor as well! Marc has already provided The Watercraft Journal will some stellar fishing photography, mapping and useful info, but top notch product reviews! Oh, and there’s plenty more to come.
As many might be aware, PWC fishing or what many refer to as “jet ski fishing,” (what we have often called “jet angling”) is a huge sport in its own right outside of the States, primarily in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as well as other hot spots throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Only now, particularly through pioneers like Marc and of course, our own “Jet Ski Brian” Lockwood, has jet angling come to America. We know a lot of you are avid fishermen and women and we look forward to bringing you tales of bloody footwells, big catches and bigger “fish tales” in the coming months!
Focusing on RIVA’s top-of-the-line performance parts available in their Stage 3 Performance Kits, the new campaign is making it easier (and cheaper) for high-speed enthusiasts to match Aero’s Stock class machine by reducing the FZR kit price from $9,325.95 to a new special price $ 8,879.95! That’s an incredible savings of over $400!
For your performance Yamaha enthusiasts, your Stage 3 Kit includes RIVA’s Performance Power Filter Kit, E1 Supercharger Impeller, Supercharger Gear Dampener, GEN-2 Power Cooler Kit, SSQV Blow-off Valve Kit, Intake Manifold Upgrade Kit, Billet Fuel Rail, Fuel Pressure Regulator Kit, Pro-Series 1,000cc Fuel Injector Kit, 3 Bar MAP Sensor Kit, Vi-PEC V88R3 Pro-Series ECU, Free Flow Exhaust Kit, Engine Cooling Upgrade Kit, Engine Breather Upgrade Kit, Pump Seal Kit, Stainless Steel Intake Grate, R-Series Swirl Impeller (160mm), Stainless Steel Wear Ring (160mm), Performance Ride Plate, Pro-Series Reduction Nozzle, and their Pro-Series Reduction Nozzle Ring.
Of course, this package is for 2013 models and will guarantee top speeds over 80MPH @ 8,300 RPM, although it definitely won’t guarantee that you will be faster than Aero. RIVA Racing has yet to figure how to bottle and sell that level of natural talent.
Yup, you read that title right. A Yamaha WaveBlaster lost by Tomomune Matsunaga from Fukushima, Japan, during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami washed ashore in the Johnston Atoll, about 700 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Amazingly enough, the ‘Blaster stayed afloat the 3,300 miles from Fukushima all the way across the Pacific Ocean.
Found by Danielle Lampe, an intern doing a bird survey for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, discovered the PWC this past May; and now, thanks to some help from Chris Woolaway, the Hawaii coordinator for International Coastal Cleanup, Matsunaga is getting his ski back free of charge.
According to a report by DailyMail, “Woolaway called on a friend who reached out to the captain of a Japanese boat, the Fukushima Maru…. The captain, Shigeki Kuwabara, agreed to transport the jet ski and, on Sunday, when the boat left Honolulu for Japan, the craft was hoisted aboard, set to reunite with its owner on November 11 after another long trip across then Pacific Ocean.”
Matsunaga, who lost his home and nearly all of his personal possessions back on March 11, 2011, was elated to hear that his WaveBlaster had survived. Matsunaga, who lives in temporary housing in Iwaki City, has not disclosed any plans for what he will do with his PWC when he gets it back.
Tucked into my dresser drawer is a t-shirt with the words “No replacement for displacement” printed on it. A little discolored from years of washes, it was given to me back in my Personal Watercraft Illustrated days; a gift from Yamaha around the same time the Super High Output (SHO) 1,812cc engine was introduced. The late 2008 introduction of the big 1.8 liter engine to the personal watercraft industry was a historic one. Although the factory tune produced a meager 218-horsepower, the potential buried within the engine was easily unearthed.
I remember the impact well. Factory Yamaha racer Mike Follmer was one of the firsts to clock some serious speed. Working alongside R&D Performance’s Bill Chapin, Follmer’s red, white and blue FZR tripped the radar gun at 81mph with the use of a Motec ECM, a larger intercooler and supercharger, open exhaust and a few other Open class modifications. Together with Bill and Motec’s Pete Swinney, we recreated the same build with a black-and-gray FZS over two blistering hot days of testing and wrenching at Lake Havasu’s Body Beach.
For 2014, Yamaha upped the ante, massaging the SHO into the Super Vortex High Output (SVHO) engine. With a larger supercharger, improved cooling, designed forged pistons and larger fuel injectors, power production increased dramatically from an estimate 215 to 260-horsepower.
Since the SHO’s entrance onto the scene, Sea-Doo loyalists have been clamoring for a competitive engine. Rumors over a 2-liter Rotax have circled chat rooms for the better part of a decade now. Whether the lauded plant is an overbored, big-stroke version of the cutting edge ACE engine (found in both the Spark and Ski-Doo snowmobiles), or a mythical four-cylinder version of the current 4-tec remains to be seen (although the first seems more likely possibility given the ACE’s glowing track record and advanced architecture).
Additionally, Kawasaki’s new scroll-type supercharger produces less heat and weighs in significantly less than the roots-style supercharger currently found on the Ultra JetSki units.
Yet, it appears to many that once industry leader, Kawasaki is becoming the industry’s dark horse innovator. Despite the revised and refined current 1.5-liter’s staggering and frankly, unmatched power production in its current Ultra 310 lineup (X, R, SE and LX), the brand is refocusing its efforts on smaller, more potent packages.
Earning an extraordinary amount of attention has been the introduction of the Kawasaki H2R and its street-legal sibling the H2. In its unleashed form (including a titanium open exhaust element), the near-1,000cc aluminum 4-cylinder, four-stroke engine is the first of its kind to come supercharged from the factory in a motorcycle. Mechanically gear-driven by a two-piece jackshaft, the impeller presses the compressed air into multiple throttle bodies.
All of this adds up to a phenomenal 300-horsepower that is only harnessed through a series of “civilizing electronics including KTRC traction control, KEBC engine braking control, and KLCM launch control.” At 998cc, the new H2R engine is a benchmark for the brand’s commitment to superior engineering, and raises the question whether today’s advancements in engine management, lightweight-yet-durable materials and forced-induction technology have replaced the brute force of big displacement powerplants.
Sure it might not look too sexy, but Ford’s 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine has proven itself as both a potent, lightweight and reliable powerplant superior to some of the most advanced automotive engines in the world.
Unconventionalizing A Conventional Design
Improving upon existing designs has allowed engineers to both innovate new routes to simultaneously making power and improving efficiency all the while saving big in manufacturing costs. Switching from cast iron to high quality aluminum engine blocks or aluminum to heat resistant plastic intake manifolds has shaved needful weight. But huge gains have come from drastically reducing both cubic inches and employing advanced forced-induction means.
Recently, America’s longest-running automaker, Ford’s 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine won the International Engine of the Year Award for the third straight year. This feat was achieved by besting BMW’s 647cc 2-cylinder and VW’s 999cc 3-cylinder. Coming in at exactly 999cc and making 123 horsepower and 125 lb-ft of torque, the 3-cylinder EcoBoost won the Sub 1-Liter category and went on to take the overall.
According to EngineLabs.com, the 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine’s “compact, low-inertia turbocharger spins at up to 248,000 rpm – more than 4,000 times per second and almost twice the maximum rpm of the turbochargers powering 2014 Formula 1 race car engines.”
Acting independently, the two modular cam phasers offer increased horsepower and torque, smoother power delivery, and reduced fuel consumption throughout the RPM range, along with – the same as with automotive engines equipped with variable valve timing.
Ducati developed the VVT system to permit variable overlap for a smoother delivery of power throughout the curve. At 1,198cc, Ducati’s new engine pumps out 160 horsepower at 9,500 rpm and an impressive 100.3 lb-ft of torque. This kind of performance is only achieved through the VVT mechanism, which is designed to provide greater overlap during high RPM operation and low overlap for smoother performance while running at low RPM.
Thinking Way Outside of The Box
Sometimes, what has worked before gets thrown out of the window and engineers need to start with a blank sheet of paper. This was the case for Nissan’s DIG-T R engine. Designed specifically for Nissan’s new ZEOD RC Le Mans racecar, the unusual 3-cylinder engine holds far larger implications for the future of the brand and small displacement engines everywhere as the turbocharged, direct-injected 1.5-liter 3-cylinder engine produces a staggering 400 horsepower.
It bears repeating that the gas-powered DIG-T R engine is incredibly compact and lightweight, totaling just 88 pounds, claiming that the DIG-T R can rev to “7,500 rpm and dish out 380 Nm of torque (around 280 lb-ft),” which is a comparable to that of a F1 engine.
According to Gizmag, the Duke engine is “an axial design, meaning that its five cylinders encircle the drive shaft and run parallel with it. The pistons drive a star-shaped reciprocator, which nutates around the drive shaft, kind of like a spinning coin coming to rest on a table.”
But the Nissan is only reapplying Formula 1 technology to a smaller 3-cylinder arrangement. What happens when you remove the linear crankshaft completely? Then you might have something like Duke Engines’ Axial Engine Design. The New Zealand engine developer designed a 3-liter, five cylinder prototype that produces a stout 215 horsepower and 250 lb-ft of torque at 4,500rpm.
Although significantly larger in displacement than any engine mentioned in this article, the Duke Axial Engine is completely valveless, and is nearly 20 percent lighter and 3-times more compact than most conventional 3-liter engines. Because of a reduced reciprocating mass, the Duke design produces lower internal engine temperatures, providing “excellent resistance to pre-ignition (or detonation)…. Duke has run compression ratios as high as 14:1 with regular 91-octane gasoline,” according to Gizmag.
Yes, you are looking at a roots-style supercharged 4-cylinder force-fed (again) by a turbo. The added boost pushes Volvo’s T6 engine to in impressive 302HP.
The Future of Boost is The Future
Apart from the Ducati and the Duke Axial Engine, each of the engines listed here have all benefited from the use of forced-induction. Be it a supercharger or turbo, pressing a cooled intake charge into a small displacement engine can handily outperform a naturally-aspirated large-displacement engine. But how far can a power-adder go?
Volvo (yes, Volvo) seems to have the answer. Two gasoline 4-cylinder engines, a a 240-horsepower and a higher output 302-horsepower version, comprise the latest editions to the automaker’s Drive-E powertrain lineup. The 302HP T6 engine is impressive because it is both supercharged and turbocharged. The mechanically-linked supercharger is always live, producing boost at low revs, while the turbocharger kicks in once the airflow builds up.
The choice to stay small was based on two reasons: weight and friction reduction. Volvo’s T6 is smaller, lighter (by nearly 100 pounds), and produces considerably less emissions and higher fuel economy savings, according to Volvo, “ranging from 13 to 26 percent” over engines producing similar horsepower. As for friction, Volvo employed innovations throughout the engine, including “ball bearings on the camshaft, high-speed continuous variable valve timing and intelligent heat management with a fully variable electric water pump” as reported by Gas 2.
Most impressive is that the Valeo turbo’s powerful electric motor can spool the impeller up to 70,000 rpm in less than a second.
But in the battle of supercharger versus turbo, the argument almost always boils down to parasitic loss versus lag. Superchargers pull their power from the crankshaft, while turbos require exiting gases to spool the impeller fast enough to produce pressure. Were turbos able to produce boost independent of exhaust gases, then superchargers would be made obsolete, right? Potentially.
And that is the position French supplier Valeois taking. By innovating an electric turbocharger, turbo lag will be “a thing of the past.” In a report by AutoNews, “the new turbocharger is powered by an electric motor instead of exhaust gases. When not needed, the turbo’s impeller, which pumps air and fuel into the cylinders, still spins at 10,000 rpm, so there is minimal hesitation or lag in engine response when the driver presses the accelerator pedal.”
Yet, there is a downside or two: cost and power consumption. The turbo requires 48-volt power, which it soaks up quite hungrily. And feeding that much juice takes some added electronics under the hood. The trade is that for all that electricity, Valeo says their electric turbo-charger can reduce fuel consumption between 7 and 20 percent.
On The Water Any Time Soon
And while it’s unlikely that a supercharged turbo Sea-Doo will arrive on dealer floors anytime soon, it is very likely that technologies being developed for motorcycles, automobiles and even other on and off-road applications will find their way into personal watercraft. As enthusiasts want no shortage of power but crave added fuel efficiency and smooth power delivery, engineers have only to look towards what’s being accomplished around them for inspiration.
