There are some serious “no brainers” out there when it comes to enjoying your personal watercraft: you wouldn’t ride without your life jacket, without proof of registration (or your registration stickers clearly installed), a license plate on your trailer, or anything else any law abiding boater would go without. It’s just good sense and helps ensure that personal watercraft riders are just as responsible as any other boater. So, why would you go through all of that and ride without insurance?
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McGraw’s available packages are also insanely user friendly, with flexible payment plans with low down payments, competitive rates and a 24-hour claims department. And if you’re a member of the American Watercraft Association (AWA), you can cut 10-percent off.
This is why all of us at The Watercraft Journal are so excited to announce that McGraw Powersports Group has joined the world’s fastest-growing personal watercraft enthusiast magazine, with over 85,000 individual readers coming to read over 260,000 articles in its first nine months of publication! Look for more information on how you too can protect yourself and your PWC from The Watercraft Journal soon!
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McGraw Powersports Group is committed to providing powersports dealers with and their customers with compliant products of value that build customer loyalty and protects powersports enthusiasts.
The history of Skat-Trak is still found throughout the company’s massive facility. We spotted these still new-in-box 20-year-old props in the inventory.
“I’m going,” my father insisted when I announced that I was scheduled to tour the Calimesa, California, headquarters of legendary Skat-Trak Performance Products. The multi-acre facility perched off of the northern side of the Inland Empire’s 10 Freeway is an industrial version of the Winchester Mansion, a maze of cross-crossing expansions, additions and alterations that date the company’s near-60 years of business like rings on a tree.
The front office is clean and new with a bright marquee hanging above the front door that directly contrasts a faded and weathered hand-painted sign stretching across the facade of the original large aluminum warehouse out back, a few feet off of the side street entrance. Yet, that is the history laden in Skat-Trak.
Spanning over half a century, the equipment inside is a hodgepodge of modern CAD-design computers, high-tech CNC machines, ancient Naval shipyard-grade Bridgeport presses and drills, to custom-designed tooling shielded from peering camera lenses.
All Skat-Trak impellers begin life in wax. The process is exceedingly time consuming to go from a wax mold to a finished stainless steel prop. Want to know why your custom order is a few weeks out? You’ll see why.Molten steel will be poured through the center inlet, filling each of these only after being covered and baked in layers of industrial ceramics.Each component – be it an impeller, a stator or intake grate – starts as a wax mold before being dipped and baked several times to create the final ceramic mold. These vats need to be kept circulating or will immediately harden.
Over its 60-plus-years of manufacturing, the Stuart family has earned incomparable notoriety in both the worlds of personal watercraft and sand sports. Beginning with developing custom paddle tires for dune buggies, sand rails and ATVs, Skat-Trak stepped into offering impellers by the early 1980s.
“I was one of your biggest customers,” my 71-year-old father boasted as he shook Business Office Manager Michelle Stuart-Thompson’s hand. “I had a shop that rented out jet skis, dirt bikes and ATCs in the ’80s. I still use your paddles on my Rhino,” he continued, producing a couple of photos hastily printed from his home computer that morning. Until that time, I had never seen my father “geek out.”
Michelle had volunteered to clear her schedule and walk us through the Skat-Trak headquarters with one key caveat, much of the proprietary processes couldn’t be photographed or documented. That was fine as our tour was intended to be purely experiential, not a nuts-and-bolts breakdown of Skat’s processes.
Snaking from one room to the next, Michelle showed us how each impeller, stator and intake grate is cast in wax before being dipped in several proprietary ceramic solutions, coating it enough to create a mold wherein molten stainless or aluminum is poured and kilned, baking the wax out, leaving a rough, unfinished part.
Once coated and hardened, the wax is melted out leaving a hollow mold where molten stainless can be poured in.Obviously, handling molten 17-4 stainless steel requires proper protection as workers are faced with searing temperatures.
We passed by pallets of dulled stainless steel ingots stacked in the same way gold bricks are in movies, the metal’s luster only to be brought out in the finishing process. From the blistering furnace, the ceramic molds will be shattered, most of their contents to be thrown away. Thankfully, much of the unused slag necessary to fill the impeller molds is recycled, saving Skat-Trak tens of thousands of dollars in material over the years.
Of course, waste is a major issue as California’s strict anti-pollution legislation has all but driven manufacturing from the Golden State. As it stands, Skat has several hoops to jump through to appease such laws, the newest of which requiring the company to collect runoff from its parking lot within 24 hours of a rainfall, and submit it for analysis at any number of “approved” laboratories or face excessive fines.
Once “hatched” from its mold, the impeller is sent off to be polished, measured and finished. Each prop is individually and meticulously evaluated, it’s rough casting polished into a glistening final product. Likewise, every impeller is compared against a final template to ensure that the pitch, angle and blade is correct. Again, the process is time consuming but results in a superior product each and every time.
Skat-Trak’s furnaces are impressively large, able to bake several racks of impellers at the same time.Raw, newly cast impellers are brought to the machine shop where mating surfaces are CNC milled.The keyed sleeves are kept frozen until a new prop is heated up to be fused together.
Prior to final packaging, many props require sleeving to which Skat-Trak freezes the knurled sleeves as they simultaneously bake the prop.
As the metal of the prop expands, the frozen sleeve contracts, providing Skat enough clearance to fit the sleeve inside the other. Once both components have adjusted to room temperature, the bond is as strong as a weld.
The manufacturing of Skat’s Magnum Pumps is very much the same as outlined above. Michelle demonstrated how they can offset the stator, configure blade count and placement and otherwise completely customize the pump to the customer’s requirements.
“Almost all of our work these days is custom,” Michelle admitted. “We don’t do big runs of anything anymore. Now it’s all one-off stuff. We’ve had to adjust to being able to build pretty much anything.”
Upon final adjusting, polishing and evaluation, all props are organized and prepared for shipping.In addition from starting from scratch, Skat-Trak accepts pumps and props for repairs and customization.The total surface area of the Twin Drive impeller setup is mandatory to produce the thrust necessary to launch Flyboarders dozens of feet into the air or achieve the unmatched speeds of the Hydro-Drag racers.
Recently, the advent of the Flyboard and performance enthusiasts wanting the benefits of dual “Twin Drive” impellers has gotten Skat-Trak dusting off some old tricks.
“Oh yeah,” Michelle smiles slyly. “The top [inducer] propeller is pretty much our old 550 prop. We just pitch it to work with the Main impeller.” This added surface area is what produces the thrust necessary to propel Flyboard riders 30-feet into the air, or push drag racers well into the 90s.
“The Flyboards are really big for us,” she continued. “We get orders from all over the planet. We just sent a couple to Australia this morning. One went to Dubai yesterday.” Motioning to a pair of boxes, Michelle admits, “I think this Twin Drive is for Jerry Gaddis for some testing.”
A familiar face to those milling around the pits at race sites since the late 1980s, Glenn Perry is Skat-Trak’s resident guru almost flawlessly being able to diagnose PWC issues at first blush.We caught a glimpse of this Sea-Doo Spark impeller in mid-finishing. The unusual lip of the swirl design helps increase acceleration for the lightweight, underpowered machine.These Intimidator motorcycle paddles feature a mild mohawk center lip with scallops. A pretty cool set of sand tires if we’ve ever seen ’em!
Aside from props, pumps, cones and intake grates, the far larger side of Skat-Trak’s business is its paddle tire industry. Although a far larger majority of Skat’s process is kept under lock and key, we were privy to witnessing the creation of several paddles from beginning to end.
First of all, Skat-Trak doesn’t make tires. They modify them. “Cores” are collected from all over, providing Skat-Trak a variety of sizes and compounds. A very cool machine quickly and pretty violently buffs each tire clean of its tread, leaving the surface smooth or rough, either just on top, or all the way down the sidewall.
Next, uniquely engineered press heats and molds rubber (and available Kelvar fiber mesh) in to the paddles, fusing them to the tire surface. It’s here that as many or as few paddles can be added. Likewise, a bead of knobbies or a single smooth mohawk ridge can be added. From there, the tires are packaged and shipped out.
For more “throwbacks,” we spotted some serious gems hidden throughout the Skat-Trak warehouses, including this vintage neon sign that once hung over the offices and a very custom 650SX that, according to Michelle Stuart-Thompson, Gary Hart of Jettrim “desperately wants to get his hands on.”As the sport has evolved, so has Skat-Trak by offering a variety of pitches of props, products and services unique to one of the biggest names in the personal watercraft industry.
Admittedly, it’s hard to keep your finger on all the latest goings on in the world of personal watercraft. Of course, we do it better than most, but that doesn’t mean we’re completely dialed in (here’s your invitation to “Like” us on Facebook and send us a link or an instant message of anything you deem newsworthy). Nevertheless, there are a few outlets we regularly frequent, one of those being 3FTDeep. For those unfamiliar, 3FTDeep is a YouTube channel documenting the “Sea-Doo adventures” of a pair of friends from White Rock, BC.
Updated on a pretty consistent weekly basis, 3FTDeep manages to do one thing particularly well, and that is capture the true spirit of runabout riders. In recent days we’ve picked up on a lot of “anti-couch chatter” on the intarwebs and can’t help but feel a little defensive of our two- and three-seater friends (y’know, the outlying majority of personal watercraft owners across North America). The biggest gripe has been, “I get bored after a few minutes” to which we reply, you’re doing it wrong.
For an example of how to truly maximize the most fun out of a supercharged Sea-Doo, you need to look no further than this awesome YouTube channel. These couple of guys are truly enjoying their skis – be it touring, exploring, racing, and hot rodding their craft. Below we’ve included one of our favorite videos titled “15-4-50” – wherein these two manage to make landfall on 15 island in a single 204km (126 miles) in a day’s ride, in the chill of winter no less!
In late June, The Watercraft Journal let you know about the Van Beek’s Flip For Emerson GoPro Weekend – a couple of days of great freeride action scheduled for July 11-13th at Van Beek’s Landing, Hanford, CA. But it wasn’t about the backflips, can-cans or underflips that drew people in from several states away. We managed to talk with freerider Pete McAfee who let us know the very touching story behind this honorable and worthwhile event:
He explained: “This little angel is Emerson Meredith. Her father Josh and I were good buds growing up and roommates for about three years after high school. Last year, on June 17, Josh’s wife, Samantha took Emerson to the pediatrician because she had bruises that wouldn’t go away, a 101 fever that kept popping up every few days, a stomach ache and she was looking pale and tired.
“They ran some blood work and an hour later they got the call that made their world stop turning, ‘I need you to come back to the office. She has leukemia.’ Twelve hours later they where in Fort Worth, TX meeting with an oncologist. It was midnight. They started blood transfusions immediately because 85% of her blood cells were blasts (cancer). The next day Emerson went into surgery to have her portacath put in and chemo started immediately after. Their new normal had begun.
“It has been one year since that day. One year of procedures, illness, lumbar punctures, holding down their baby while poison is pumped into her. One year of being more blessed and more grateful than ever before! One year of love and support from friends, family and total strangers!”
While sponsors were reached to help donate to their surmounting medical costs, it was the riders who helped by coming out in droves, purchasing t-shirts and giving of their money, time and talents. Below you’ll see a great video from the mid-July weekend.
There’s a joke batting around the internet that everything in Australia wants to kill you. From poisonous spiders, venous snakes, great white sharks, jellyfish, stone fish, giant centipedes and drop bears (look it up), Australia is full of men carved out of rock and leather, and their national past time is little more than a Foster-fueled bar brawl on a soccer field. So when James Tod of The JetSkiShop invites his “Breakfast Club” of local PWC enthusiasts out for a wintertime ride, you can bet yer keister it’s gonna be a rough one.
James reported, “We had an epic jet ski adventure for the first week of August 2014. We gave 12 lucky watercraft riders the exclusive tour of the Whitsundays, which included Hamilton Island and the world famous Whitehaven Beach. Each day had a a unique experience. Each day we went sking around the Whitsundays, which is part of the Great barrier reef.
“We also had a themed ‘Castaway Night,’ with each person dressed up to the theme of a castaway. We had a great ride followed by drinks and cocktails. Each night we all got back to the marina just in time to watch the sunset. We saw lots of coral, white sandy beaches on isolated islands, whales, turtles, and dolphins.
“We also got to explore ‘Hill Inlet’ located on Whitsunday Island (the largest island in the Whitsundays), which had a prehistoric feel about it as it is uninhabited, and knowing there is the real danger of man-eating crocodiles and large sharks. Once we headed up the river and into the mangroves, it had some of the largest oysters I had ever seen.
“We completed the 78km trip without too much disruption, other than one ski that ran aground and in one section of that trip we encountered 2.5–3 meter swells. This was a huge test for the all riders, which covered male and female, 25-to-65 years of age.
“As this was our second trip, we plan on this being an annual event.”
[Apparently, I need to preface this editorial by saying that this is meant to be a funny little glimpse of some “inside baseball” between two enthusiasts who happen to work within the PWC industry – one far more significantly than the other. Please don’t misconstrue this for more than it is. And please don’t write me or Mr. Watkins angry emails. – Ed.]
The condensation beading off the sides of my bottled water fell freely like raindrops, pooling into a wet spot in the table cloth. The shade of the large lakeside pavilion did little to shield from the oppressive humidity. Yamaha’s 2015 Media Introduction was an attractive affair, gathering members of the press from the boating and personal watercraft industries to the Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation perched on the edge of Lake Oconee. Nearly every possible factor was planned for, that is except for the sudden onset of mid-afternoon mugginess.
The sweltering atmosphere didn’t break Jerry Gaddis’ focus from the screen of his iPhone. Greenhulk.net’s founder was rarely without it. Nowadays, I am no different, much to the chagrin of my wife. By this time, the cat was out of the bag. Yamaha’s presentation of its 2015 lineup of WaveRunners was less of an unveiling, but a debriefing; a glimpse into the company’s brutal take-no-prisoners plan of attack for the new year. If 2014’s boost in overall sales (15-percent increase) meant anything it was people are excited again, and hungrily buying up new product.
Although presented as being succinctly different, the new RiDE system couldn’t help but ring echoes of Sea-Doo’s iBR in my ears. And that’s OK. I learned a while back that truly successful people don’t envy and despise others for their success; they congratulate them and try to emulate what worked and put their own spin on it. In its five years of existence, Sea-Doo’s Intelligent Brake & Reverse has been hailed an unmitigated success by the media, the boating industry and customers. Blamelessly, Yamaha wanted a slice of that pie.
The announcement of the JL Audio system the following week clearly was targeted towards those whose interest was piqued by the Jetsound system on the Kawasaki 310LX. And if Yamaha didn’t invent it, they were damned sure to improve upon it.
Then I realized that the actions of one, almost directly effect the other.
The next day, between rounds of flogging whichever new model I could get my hands on, I had a moment alone with Scott Watkins, the IJSBA World Champion and Yamaha Product Manager for the last 20 years.
“So, no SuperJet?” I asked, half joking.
“Oh, no. It’s still there. We just didn’t think we needed to wheel one out,” Watkins laughed.
“Yeah, I can see that. So when are we going to see a new one? Y’know something different?”
His gaze shifted. “Never.”
“Really?”
“We can build the SuperJet only as long as we leave it ‘as-is’ – it’s an EPA thing,” he growled. “The minute we update it, it won’t be considered ‘old technology’, which gets grandfathered in. Once we mess with it, it’s gotta pass all the emission stuff, and you know it won’t. So we’ve gotta leave it alone.”
I prodded a little deeper, “Yikes. How about going 4-stroke? Maybe with the 1,100 in it?”
His normal default devil-may-care grin turned sour. “Not gonna happen.”
Reading my surprised expression, he continued, “We talked about going 4-stroke. We did. It was a few years back. I put an end to it. The minute we put a 4-stroke in the SuperJet is the minute it stops being a jet ski. Y’know what I mean?”
It was an emotional answer. And yes, I got it.
“We used to have these races where we swamped our skis on purpose and timed each other to see how fast we could drag it up the beach, pull the plugs, turn it over and get it running. I think I did it in like 3 minutes.” The smile immediately came back to his tanned face. His eyes danced. There was nostalgia there that refused to be replaced with with bigger, heavier standups.
An insane thought suddenly came to mind. “Scott. When did this conversation happen?”
“Sheesh. I dunno. Maybe 2008. Why?”
Quickly arranging my thoughts, I stammered, “Alright, imagine if you OK’ed a four-stroke SuperJet. How quickly would it have hit the market? 2010?”
“Yeah, most likely,” he replied, raising a curious eyebrow.
“So let’s say Yamaha announces a 4-stroke SuperJet in late 2009 for the next year,” by this time, the train of thought running in my mind was nearly jumping its tracks. “When did Kawasaki kill the SX-R? 2011?”
“Yeah…”
“Here’s my question: Do you think had the SuperJet gone 4-stroke that Kawasaki would’ve killed the JetSki? We both know they’ve got working prototypes. Do you think they would’ve just followed Yamaha with a 4-stroke a year or two after you guys?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
“So it’s your fault!” I announce a little too loudly, drawing the attention of a few people near us.
Scott’s eyes widen and brow furrows, confused and little angry. “What?”
“Had you approved a 4-stroke SuperJet, Kawasaki never would’ve killed the SX-R,” a deduce in my best Sherlock Holmes impression.
Laughing but a little uncomfortable with where I was going with this, “Yeah, I don’t know about that, Kevin,” he smirks.
“Yeah, I know. I know. But it’s a crazy idea, right?” I pause one or two beats before leaning in, almost threatening, “This going in the magazine.”
OK, it’s previous obvious that demand has clearly outweighed supply in the case of the new Sea-Doo Spark. There are dealers across the nation clamoring to fulfill interest and orders for the new two- and three-seater runabouts, and BRP simply didn’t produce enough to flood the market. For anyone who’s passed a basic economics or marketing course know that this was an intentional move by BRP, so don’t get too twisted over it. It’s just part of doing business.
Thankfully, those really impatient bargain hunters refusing to sit back and wait for the containers of new 2015 Sparks to arrive from the Juarez, Mexico facility, actually have another shot at scoring a 2014 model. Middle Tennessee’s America’s Motor Sports just landed over half a dozen new Sparks ranging from the near-impossible-to-find base model $4,999 unit to a fully-loaded pink three-seater equipped with Sea-Doo’s iBR Intelligent Brake & Reverse.
Below is the cheat sheet of available units and the prices that AMS is listing them at. If you’re refusing to let this summer slip past you and you just gotta have a new Spark for this Labor Day Weekend, then we know the place to go.
Here is the new models America’s Motor Sports have left:
– 2 seat base Vanilla (60hp) $4999
– 2 seat w/convenience package in Orange Crush (60hp) $5199
– 2 seat w/convenience package in Orange Crush (90hp) $5899
– 2 seat w/convenience package in Pineapple (90hp) $5899
– 3 seat base in Orange Crush (90hp) $6299
– 3 seat w/convenience package in Pineapple (90hp) $6499
– 3 seat base w/IBR in Bubble Gum (90hp) $6999
You were kind of expecting this, right? With today’s runabout personal watercraft taking on more and more conveniences and technologies, it was only a matter of time before they actually became full-sized boats, right? OK, we know we’re being a little facetious but with Yamaha’s latest salvo of advances to their FX, FZ and all-new VX series, the lines between a 21-foot top-of-the-line ski boat and a fully-optioned PWC are starting to grey.
With the aid of Sealver, you can readily convert your three-seater runabout into a “Wave Boat” that the whole family can enjoy at once! Sealver’s unique craft allow you to dock your ski inside, strap down and use your PWC as the powertrain. That’s right! You can literally pilot a boat with your jet ski. And like you’d expect, you can customize your Sealver boat with an array of colors, seating arrangements, ski towers, and bimini tops, as well as pick from three different Wave Boat models: 525, 575 and 626.
Produced in France by Sealver, the Wave Boat lineup offers a comfortable open space to share good times together, while providing “an unforgettable experience of navigation.” And when you’re not underway, you can detach your PWC to enjoy some riding as the Wave Boat is anchored. It’s like having two boats in one!
Clearly this has been Yamaha’s week. Not only did they announce the huge relaunch of the completely redesigned VX series, the new V1 and V1 Sport Spark-fighter, and the performance-enhancing NanaXcel 2 ultra lightweight decks, liners and hulls for the already awesome SVHO series, they also blew the doors wide open with their dual throttle RiDE system.
In line with Yamaha going for the jugular in matching (and in many aspects surpassing) Sea-Doo’s Intelligent Brake & Reverse (iBR) system, as responding to their uber-popular Spark, it would seem that Yamaha is also attacking Kawasaki a little to boot. Although many raised a curious eyebrow at first blush of the Jetsound system on the 310LX, it would appear that Yamaha is not taking any chances.
New for 2015, and exclusive to the FX Cruiser models is an entirely unique JL Audio system. Featuring dual M650-CCX-SG-TB speakers encased in custom fiberglass side mirrors, a custom-designed fiberglass subwoofer tucked beneath the handlebars and JL’s new M8IB5 marine subwoofer, the whole system is powered by the company’s all-new watertight amplifiers.
Pricing and other details are soon to be released. Until then, here’s the original announcement:
JL Audio and Yamaha WaveRunners are debuting a new concept audio system specifically designed for the FX Cruiser SHO. The system features a pair of M650-CCX-SG-TB speakers in custom fiberglass enclosures, a custom-designed fiberglass subwoofer enclosure that hides underneath the handlebars using our new M8IB5 marine subwoofer. The entire system is powered by our never-before-seen watertight amplifiers. This killer system will make its big debut at the Yamaha South Beach Watercraft Product Premiere held at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, FL.
When it comes to watercraft and safety; carelessness comes at a pretty hefty price. Recently in Cornelius, North Carolina, on August 13, while enjoying a good day at Ramsey Creek Park, Lake Norman, a 59-year old-woman was injured while loading up her Sea-Doo on the trailer. According to a report by WSCOTV, while bringing her watercraft up on the trailer, she gave it far too much throttle, launching the ski off the trailer, up and over the truck, damaging the roof, sending the ski about 20 feet in front of the vehicle, landing it on the launch ramp. The woman was rushed to the hospital from the scene with minor injuries.
Safety is a big part of watercraft when it comes to owning PWC. It pays to know the rules of the waterways especially when entering into no wake zones and loading up. As you can see, because this woman did not know what she was doing, she not only got hurt herself, but this ski and truck are now damaged too. Not being careful on the water could lead to death, not just yours but others. To learn more about safety courses, and how you can help keep the waterways safer visit the US Coast Guard website and remember always wear your life vest.
