There are a few sacred rules to riding a personal watercraft that seem pretty easy to follow: don’t run your ski up a beach, don’t run into underwater obstacles, and don’t suck up anything into the jet pump (to name a few). These seem pretty easy right? Well, for the folks at AlumaSki, those are just too hard to follow. So, they discovered a solution: make an armored PWC.
The brainchild of Mackinnon Marine Technologies, the AlumaSki aims to eliminate all previous fears of puncturing or cracking your ski’s hull on rocks, tree branches or other unforeseen oddities. Pulling most of its running gear and propulsion components from a Yamaha VX, the AlumaSki replaces the traditional fiberglass hull with a durable, hand-formed quarter-inch thick aluminum deck. Surprisingly, it weighs in at 950 pounds (dry weight), which is only about 100 pounds heavier than the fiberglass PWC.
Powered with a Yamaha 1,100cc four-stroke, the 12-foot-long AlumaSki tops out at 60mph, which still ain’t too shabby. Really intended for some serious conditions, the AlumaSki truly shines in narrow, shallow or rough river riding, as well as hunting, fishing, work and rescue response. Unfortunately, the official page doesn’t mention much in the way protecting the jet pump from sucking up any debris or chewing up and spitting out gravel through the prop, so we’ll see how long that goes.
Now here’s the kicker: the AlumaSki will sell for just under of $25,000, which is almost $10,000 more expensive than Yamaha’s well equipped model, the FX SVHO Cruiser. So again, we’re not exactly sure of the exact market this machine is targeted for, but it’s pretty wild to see it in action.
[…] Something like aquatic rally racing, the Derby is a spectacle to witness and therefore such a smash hit. Spectators line the swampy waterfront to watch these high horsepower skiffs slide and drift around tree stumps and sandbars at top speed with only a navigator and pilot on board. No seats, no seatbelts, no nada. This year was particularly special as JetPilot’s own Kyle Pfitzner and Ryleigh Pfitzner paired up to take the win. Yeah, we know. This ain’t PWC racing. But we think we might’ve finally seen a solid use for the Alumaski. […]