Gliding on lakes and waterways throughout the world, personal watercrafts have left their mark on the history of water sports. Although popular today, the PWC market first had trouble establishing itself. This famous craft has undergone design overhauls, changing industries, and engineering breakthroughs to become the product we see now. In this feature, we’re looking back on the history that led us to the modern PWC, from early water scooters to the flagship models from brands such as Bombardier, Kawasaki, and Yamaha.

Highways To Waterways

One of the very first PWCs was built in the 1950s by Vincent Engineers, then called Vincent HRD. Vincent was a British motorcycle manufacturer trying to bring their engines to new terrain. They designed the propeller-driven Vincent Amanda, a so-called “water scooter” featuring an outboard motor and a fiberglass body. This vehicle could reach speeds of up to 15 miles per hour and had a 200cc twin motor rated at 5.6 horsepower.

Though it was an ambitious idea, the Vincent Amanda had middling commercial success, exporting just 2,000 units to dealerships worldwide. Similar products, such as the American-made Sea Skimmer, found even less success. There were less than 1,000 Sea Skimmers built before they were discontinued. By the early 60s, these external motor machines had failed to impress anyone, and production screeched to a halt. 

The outlook was bleak, but luckily, this idea survived in a different style.

Pioneering The PWC

While these early vehicles sank into obscurity, PWCs found new life thanks to the work of a man named Clayton Jacobson II. Jacobson literally crashed into this emerging industry thanks to a motorcycle racing accident. While tending to his wounds, he was inspired to create a vehicle as thrilling as his motorcycles without the risk of hitting the hard ground. 

Jacobson used his background in drafting and engineering, provided by a fascination with aircraft and his service with the Marine Corps Reserves, to start designing. While the PWC of the day faced discontinuation, he had a working prototype of a stand-up, jet-propelled watercraft.

This is where our first modern brand comes into play. Bombardier is a manufacturing company known for their snowmobiles. They took interest in Jacobson’s work and offered him a licensing deal. Together, they created a sit-down PWC using his jet-boat engine, marketing the new craft as the ‘Sea-Doo.’ While the Sea-Doo saw more traction than the Vincent Amanda and the Sea Skimmer, Bombardier wasn’t the breakthrough that PWC needed. 

After just a few years, the licensing between Jacobson and Bombardier came to a close. There wasn’t enough demand to justify manufacturing costs, and the Sea-Doo fell off the market in the late 60s.

The Jet Ski

Jacobson wasn’t content with this outcome, so he sought out a new licensing deal to keep his invention alive. It took a little while to find a new partner, and his next hit came in 1972. He licensed his invention to Japanese manufacturer Kawasaki. This is where the PWC really came into its own. The Kawasaki deal saw the creation of the Jet Ski, a name now so widely known that it’s often used interchangeably with personal watercraft. 

Within a year, Kawasaki had a functioning model of the Jet Ski ready to go international. This was a stand-up PWC, as opposed to the sit-down Bombardier Sea-Doo. This dynamic shift made for a sporty, athletic vehicle that saw massive success in the United States. The Jet Ski was marketed as water skiing without a boat. And clearly, the consumers loved it.

Jacobson’s invention took off, but Kawasaki soon fumbled and opened the gates to competition.

Yamaha’s Entrance

After some years of success, Kawasaki sought to end its agreement with Jacobson. In 1976, they sent him a letter sparking a legal battle, which was ultimately settled out of court, and as a result, Kawasaki lost its exclusive control over Kawasaki’s designs and ended their working relationship with the engineer behind the landmark PWC. 

Enter Yamaha Motor Company, another Japanese manufacturer, and one of Kawasaki’s most prominent rivals. Yamaha approached Jacobson with an offer: a ten-year contract and a role as consultant for their new water vehicle division. With his insight, they launched their own product to answer the Jet Ski’s control over the market. 

Yamaha’s new PWC was called the WaveRunner, and it finally popularized the sit-down model of PWC that Bombardier had struggled with decades prior. WaveRunners were designed for more casual use than the stand-up Jet Ski, appealing to a different market.

After Yamaha proved the viability of a sit-down craft, it wasn’t long before Bombardier brought the Sea-Doo back from the brink and started full production once again. With three flagship brands gaining widespread success, PWCs rose from obscurity to carve out their own market. Today, they’re found on all bodies of water alongside yachts, deck boats and pontoons as a featured attraction. All of this, and there’s still room to grow. This amazing history is still being written, and we’re excited to see where it goes from here.