The words came back to me when I heard about the new Kawasaki Ultra310R, and it's power rating of 310hp. I thought, "That can't be right, they don't make Jet Ski's with that much power!"
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Classic Kawasaki design lines |
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A good view of the 22.5 degree V-hull design |
Kawasaki has been making Jet Ski's for a long time, and understand well that power needs control, so they given the 310R a deeper V-bottom hull at 22.5 degrees for a smoother ride in rough water. Counter-intuitively, the deeper V-hull also means the 310R will slow down faster than other personal watercraft once power is removed, meaning a release of the throttle at full speed could be nearly as g-force inducing as coming out of the hole with the throttle pinned to the grip. With it's relatively deep V-hull, pinning the throttle out of the hole with the steering hard over will likely bury the bow and turn the 310R into a submarine for a few seconds. This is a 70+mph personal watercraft, so to provide some measure of supervision the 310R comes with two sets of keys, one green for unrestricted power, and a yellow one that dials it down by 30%, still leaving over 200 horsepower available to your brother-in-law who wants to take it out for a spin.
Want.