Personal watercraft are a type of recreational boat designed for riding entertainment
Personal watercraft are a type of recreational boat designed for riding entertainment. Because PWC are powered by an engine and intended for the transport of person(s) on water, they fall within the Coast Guard category for motorboats. Although the Coast Guard tracks statistics on a recreational vessel type (Class A inboard motorboat) that includes personal watercraft, the Coast Guard has no official definition of personal watercraft.
The first commercially successful personal watercraft, the Jet Ski, was introduced by Kawasaki in 1974. Models from the late 1970s and early 1980s were designed for a one-person, stand-up operation. During the mid-1980s, the sit-down style became popular, and it now accounts for 97 percent of the units sold.
Most PWC sales are controlled by five companies12 that actively market between 30 and 40 different models designed for one, two, or three persons. Current PWC sales run about 200,000 units per year, and the 1998 models range in cost from $4,799 to $9,399. PWC constituted more than one-third (36 percent) of all new recreational boats sold in 1997 and represent $1.2 billion of annual sales.13
