A Small Piece Of Sea-Doo Watercraft History
Monday, July 13, 2009
By John A Moore
Yesterday as I surfed around for Seadoo pwc covers, I came across some history about Seadoos and personal watercraft in general. The story of how the modern Seadoo came to be was very interesting. I also came across some retro pictures that were pretty cool.
I had always thought that Seadoos were an invention of the late 1980s or early 1990s. In one sense that is correct. The most modern and significant developments in the area of PWCs happened post 1988. However, to limit your sense of history to that era doesn't give you a proper perspective on the evolution of Seadoos.
Back in the mid to late 1960s, the Canadian Bombardier family was busy making the ever popular Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The family began to toss around the idea of making a snowmobile that traveled on water. They quickly became serious about this project and started to make some preliminary designs of different types of prototypes. After hitting some design snags they heard about an American banker turned inventor named Jacobsen that was playing with a similar design project.
Jacobsen wanted to create a motorcycle that traveled on water. After meeting with the Bombardier family Jacobsen agreed to help. Before long, Jacobsen designed what would be the first Seadoo. Bombardier bought out Jacobsen's interest in the project and added a rounded hull and their signature yellow and black Ski-doo coloring. Bombardier also marketed the yellow and black seadoo covers. The Seadoo was offered to the general market in 1968. A slightly improved model with a liquid cooled engine was offered in 1969.
The seadoos of the late 60's had some problems which limited their marketability. Since the first design was air-cooled, the hull wasn't big enough to get enough air in to properly cool the engine. This was corrected in 1969, when they switched to liquid cooling. There were more problems however, since the majority of seadoos were sold and used on the East coast in salt water, there were insurmountable problems with corrosion.
The Bombardier family put the idea of a snowmobile on water on hold for almost 2 decades. When they thought the technology could support the idea they brought Seadoos back to market. This was in 1988. Now Bombardier recreational products makes Seadoo PWCs, Seadoo boats, and an assortment of Seadoo brand gear including Seadoo PWC covers.
I had always thought that Seadoos were an invention of the late 1980s or early 1990s. In one sense that is correct. The most modern and significant developments in the area of PWCs happened post 1988. However, to limit your sense of history to that era doesn't give you a proper perspective on the evolution of Seadoos.
Back in the mid to late 1960s, the Canadian Bombardier family was busy making the ever popular Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The family began to toss around the idea of making a snowmobile that traveled on water. They quickly became serious about this project and started to make some preliminary designs of different types of prototypes. After hitting some design snags they heard about an American banker turned inventor named Jacobsen that was playing with a similar design project.
Jacobsen wanted to create a motorcycle that traveled on water. After meeting with the Bombardier family Jacobsen agreed to help. Before long, Jacobsen designed what would be the first Seadoo. Bombardier bought out Jacobsen's interest in the project and added a rounded hull and their signature yellow and black Ski-doo coloring. Bombardier also marketed the yellow and black seadoo covers. The Seadoo was offered to the general market in 1968. A slightly improved model with a liquid cooled engine was offered in 1969.
The seadoos of the late 60's had some problems which limited their marketability. Since the first design was air-cooled, the hull wasn't big enough to get enough air in to properly cool the engine. This was corrected in 1969, when they switched to liquid cooling. There were more problems however, since the majority of seadoos were sold and used on the East coast in salt water, there were insurmountable problems with corrosion.
The Bombardier family put the idea of a snowmobile on water on hold for almost 2 decades. When they thought the technology could support the idea they brought Seadoos back to market. This was in 1988. Now Bombardier recreational products makes Seadoo PWCs, Seadoo boats, and an assortment of Seadoo brand gear including Seadoo PWC covers.
Posted byBertie at 12:47 AM
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