Nothing beats the thrill of climbing astride your personal watercraft and zooming across the lake at high speeds, tossing up spray behind you and cutting through the sparkling waters ahead. While you may know lots of tricks for riding and how to maneuver your PWC, you might not fully understand how it works. It can be helpful to understand how any vehicle works so that you can recognize problems more readily and address them.
Bright Power Sports of Lincoln Park is your local PWC dealership, so we’ve provided this guide to how your personal watercraft works so you can become more knowledgeable about your favorite pastime. This should also help you feel more confident in maintaining it since you’ll have a better understanding of its ins and outs.
Your PWC’s engine makes use of a drive shaft that’s connected to the impeller, a part that rotates to propel the craft through the water. There’s a small starting motor to power the engine before the impeller takes over. The impeller itself sits next to a small pump which pulls water in, which the impeller then forces out via a hole in the rear of your personal watercraft. This jet drive process rockets your PWC forward and follows the “action and reaction” law of motion established by Isaac Newton.
You use a set of handlebars to steer your PWC, just as you might steer a bicycle or motorcycle, with a throttle on one handle and a brake on the other. Your throttle controls how fast the jet drive process occurs, which allows you to adjust and maintain the speed of your PWC. Watercraft generally are easier to steer at higher speeds.
There is an engine shut-off switch attached to your watercraft that you secure to your life jacket or wrist. If you become incapacitated in some way, this engine shut-off switch activates, killing the engine so the watercraft comes to a full stop. This will allow you to call for help or to climb back aboard if you happen to have fallen into the water. The shut-off switch additionally helps to reduce the chance of a collision.
These functions result in some other effects which can impact animals and people in the water. One chief concern is how noisy PWCs can be. You can muffle your engine by installing noise-absorbing foam between the hull and the engine. Or you could use a noise generator that generates sound waves to cancel out engine noises. A third option is using a resonator that will draw air into the engine via a maze instead of a straight line, which helps to diffuse the sound.
Another impact that your PWC has is how it affects the surrounding environment. Provided you take good care of your machine and handle it responsibly, you can reduce this impact. Make sure that you don’t operate your PWC in shallow water, as this could cause rocks, sand and dirt to be sucked into the impeller, clogging it up. You might also do some damage to algae, coral, fish or other living creatures in the shallows.
Rinse out your PWC after each ride to ensure that you’re not transplanting invasive species from one body of water into another. If you have an older model of PWC, it may have a two-stroke engine which is more likely to leak gas and oil into the water. Upgrading to one of the new models that has a fuel-injection system and a four-stroke engine will ensure you don’t pollute water with leaking fluids.
Looking for personal watercraft for sale near Detroit? Come on into our Lincoln Park location to view our full selection of new and used PWC for sale. Bright Power Sports welcomes our customers in Wayne County, Oakland County and Livingston County, as well as those in Macomb, MI.
