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Surface speedsters: Personal watercraft zoom to popularity -- and controversy
By BILL KNIGHT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Bill Cameron will never forget what it's like going into an unplanned orbit from a personal watercraft at 60 miles per hour.
"Your shoes fly off," he said. "Your clothes come up over your head. You don't know where you are and you're seeing stars.
"It's fun after about a minute. The first minute, though, is terrifying. You just hit the water and roll."
Then he added: "That's as fast as you want to go."
Cameron, who lives in Mount Vernon, doesn't recommend getting thrown from one of the speedy, bouncing machines.
But he and more than 21,000 other owners and operators of personal watercraft in the state think nothing matches the thrill of skimming across the water at speeds of 40 to 60 mph, jumping over waves or executing a series of tricks and spins.
Personal watercraft not only are one of the fastest items in nautical entertainment outside hydroplanes, they are without question the hottest ticket in the marine marketplace.
They also are the focus of controversy, not unlike what snowboarders and snowmobiles once faced from alpine and cross-country skiers in the mountains and motorcycle buffs met on the open road.
Nationally and in Puget Sound waters and surrounding lakes, personal watercraft -- sold under such well-known names as Sea-Doo, Jet Ski, Polaris, Yamaha and Wet Jet -- have in recent years accounted for a growing chunk of the boat business.
Last year, fun seekers bought 191,000 personal watercraft, 30 percent of the 619,000 new boats sold nationally. In sales, they represented $1.2 billion or 15 percent of the marine industry's 1996 business, said Bob Moyat of the National Marine Manufacturers' Association.
"The growth numbers are awesome with no end in sight," Moyat said. "In 1991 they sold only 68,000."
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