The latest Sea-Doo personal watercraft have something you don’t see in boats very often—brakes. Motorboating explains:
perhaps the most revolutionary innovation is Intelligent Brake & Reverse. Now you can hit the brakes if a sudden stop is called for. A lever on the left handlebar cuts engine power, deploys a reverse gate and shifts the PWC into neutral and then into reverse if and when throttle is applied.
Does it come and pick you up after you fly over the handles ?
Sweet. I used to purposely launch myself and riders off our old sea-doo back in high school by throwing it into a slide and got decent distance but with this it could go to a whole new level.
Yeah, when riding a jet ski, I’ve never thought “I wish this thing stopped faster.” It’s pretty easy to stop in the water.
The most fun trick I learned was to get going fast, close the throttle, turn the handlebars to full lock, then open the throttle fully. 180 degree turn coupled with a nice dive – you could get the whole jetski submerged then come shooting out of the water if you did it right. I haven’t been on one in 15 years. I feel old.
1) Look at the size of that thing! How big can they get? Isn’t this thing just a boat? 255hp FFS! They lost the plot when they decided it was OK to sit down on these things. Remember the original Jet-Ski?
2) Why put the brake on the left handlebar? Motorbikes have it on the right – what wrong with that? Things like brakes should be a bit standardised as they are often “emergency” devices. (Don’t get me started on why the hell the front brake on bicycles is usually on the left!).
3) The fitting of the brake is perhaps in response to a criticism leveled at craft like this that steer by directing a thrust nozzle. Basically, when you roll off the throttle they do stop pretty quickly, but you lose a lot of steering control. This can be a problem where you also want to try to steer around the obstacle/swimmer you are trying not to hit.
4) PWC (in my opinion) are a pretty naff concept amyway. Doesn’t the novelty wear off pretty quickly? I mean, what do you actually DO with them besides speeding around? Is there really much skill involved? Do you get any exercise? How do you justify annoying/endangering the shit out of all and sundry in the area? How do you justify the environmental impact?
@4 front brake is on the left because you are supposed to use your left arm to signal turns, leaving your right hand on the rear brake.
If you ride a bicycle in the UK the brakes are reversed as you are on the other side of the road.