Experimental watercraft water skiing Jet Blade

June 25, 20182min read

A team of students from humanitarian Calvin College in Michigan, USA, has developed a watercraft, Jet Blade, water skiing. They jokingly called it an attempt to return to “ski” back into “jet ski” in English “ski” means “ski” and “jet ski” “jet skis”. These Jet skis have three Blade – two front, one rear.

Something like trying to produce in the 1970s-1980s by Spirit Marine, Arctic Cat, Wetco, and Ultranautics. It was a mixture of watercraft and motorcycle under the name WetBike, managed to obtain the popularity of the machines was shot in Bondage (“the Spy who loved me”, 1977), in the third part of the “Police Academy” (1986), “Red surf” George Clooney (1990) and in several TV series, but not attained much commercial success.

Take into account the experience of the past and bring something new to the world of water sports tried the senior design team of Calvin College. Two steered front skis Jet Blade use active suspension system, a stationary rear ski combined with a water-jet engine is a 650cc with a power of 50 HP / 37 kW. When the vessel floats without movement with his front and rear skis are under water. With the acceleration – thanks to a powerful engine and lightweight construction, this happens in milliseconds – the watercraft enters the gliding mode, at full speed, barely touching the water skis.

Unique suspension, regulating the angle of inclination of the front ski makes it easy to control the movement. However, high maneuverability Jet Blade is no different, and its main feature is the ability to confidently overcome the turbulent water with a wave amplitude of 30-60 cm – again, at the expense of the device and the location of water skis.

The developers have already held a series of tests and happy with the results considering launching Jet Blade in serial production. The cost of such watercraft will be $ 12 thousand

Official site Jet Blade: link