Talk:Personal water craft

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[edit] Pollution

Is there a dispute over the claims made by some organizations that PWCs pollute? Please discuss. -Willmcw 16:57, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Well, there cannot be a dispute that they pollute; after all, they are internal combustion engined and inevitably emit pollutants when used. The question is how much, and what effects that has, and how serious a problem that is, and whether it amounts to anything significant in comparison to other forms of pollution. —Morven 17:19, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

go away hippy

The references that were in this article are misleading, dated, and false.

Also, the majority of watercraft sold are either clean burning direct-injected 2-stroke engines that emit less emissions than cars and use biodegradable oil or are 4-stroke powered just like the cars we drive.

I'm prepared to dig up the sourvces for the material on pollution. Are you prepared to provide sources for those assertions? Also, cars do not direct their exhaust directly into the water, so even if the pollution output were identical, the impact on bodies of water would be greater from PWCs. Thanks-Willmcw 23:19, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

This is a place to define PWC right? Take your naturalist bs somewhere else please... someone looking up "Pollution from Personal watercraft" looks for your info... not someone who wants to know what they are.

"Even if the pollution output were identical, the impact...." So I assume you feel there is a difference for exhaust into the air? Does it end up in the environment? In a perfect world, nobody would pollute anything, however, we are alive so even if we were cavemen, the 'environmentalists' would want to ban campfires.
Yes I'm prepared to cite sources too.--SuperJETT 23:38, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Citing sources and turning inaccurate statements into properly referenced, NPOV statements are what we should be doing. An article about personal watercraft needs to have information about their environmental impact, especially since it has attracted fairly widespread attention. —Morven 23:50, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Deleting sourced information without comment is vandalism. The anon who is doing so needs to stop. Thanks, -Willmcw 00:09, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] biodegradable oil

Manufacturers have come out with biodegradable oil a number of years ago for personal water crafts; I don't know anyone who still uses the conventional stuff, most of us care about the environment and enjoy being out exploring on the water:

http://www.pennzoil.com/products/marine/100pcSynth2cycle.html

http://www.sharetrails.org/magazine.cfm?story=320

http://www.autochic.com/redline/specialty.html

This company lists a whole bunch of them:

http://www.nmma.org/certification/programs/oils/

Sure you might get some idiots that use car oil in their PWCs (2 stroke) but most stopped. 4-stroke PWCs are as clean as a car since they use catalytic converters.

I think there is a good middle ground here.

[edit] Let's see what facts can be agreed on.

From a quick read up on the topic, these seem to be some salient points about PWC pollution. Let's see if we can get reasonable agreement on these?:

  1. Prior to 1996, PWC emissions were unregulated in the United States. In that year, the EPA passed pollution regulations for PWCs. These were set up after dialog 1991-1996 between the EPA and manufacturers.
  2. 2-stroke PWCs sold before the 1990s, and the oils they used, were highly polluting.
  3. 4-stroke PWC engines have always been less polluting than 2-stroke; modern 4-stroke PWCs feature similar technologies to cars (catalytic converters, etc) to reduce emissions to low levels.
  4. Modern 2-stroke PWCs are much improved over their pre-1990 forebears. The use of cleaner-burning direct injection and biodegradable oils have made a significant difference. However, they still pollute more than 4-stroke PWCs.
  5. California is operating an accelerated program of compliance compared to the rest of the US.

Anything else we can add to that?

This does of course ignore the complaints of noise pollution and of other, non-pollution environmental impact, which we should also address. —Morven 00:04, May 5, 2005 (UTC)


I dont care if you have sources that they pollute, the reason this page was made was to say what a PWC is, not that they pollute or dont pollute... Go away Hitler !~

Ah, a Hitler comparison. Sane discussion about this topic with you is therefore proven impossible. I cease my efforts. —Morven 00:45, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
You're from CA, sane discussion about PWC's with you was never possible... :)
Ah, that's where you are wrong. I merely live here. —Morven 01:19, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

It seems as though you'd like to concentrate on all the negatives associated with pwc, but there hasn't been any mention of the countless lives they save via rescue crews, lifeguards, and regular civilians.--12.220.216.50 01:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Do we have a source that confirms that four-stroke models predominate in all areas? The current phrasing, outdated studies on 20 year old watercraft, most of which are rarely seen on waterways today. seems like original research. We need to have a source that indicates the current majority of PWC in use are less polluting in order to support that assertion. Also, there is no information about the degree to which the new EPA standards will actually lower emissions. Let's further remember that this is an international encyclopedia. I think the emissions information that I previously supplied is still accurate in countries where the EPA does not have authority. Thanks -Willmcw 04:12, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a claim of a 75% reduction; this is probably comparing the best of now versus the worst of then, but still - it's within the bounds of probability, considering that car emissions have improved even more than that since before regulation. I'm not sure what the status will be when all the standards in place are fully rolled in.
I think the truth lies somewhere between these two points. PWCs sold today do not have the level of emissions that pre-regulation ones did. Regulations only began to take effect in 1998. The majority of the environmentalist POV references date from 1998 or so and are talking about pre-regulation craft. However, 1998 is only seven years ago; I'd imagine that at least half of the PWCs in use are pre-regulation standard, and remember that early regulation years were not as controlled. We need some real data on this, though, to state anything definite - or at least, attributed quotes from good sources.
I'd imagine that the major manufacturers of PWCs have incorporated at least some of the emissions control changes into their worldwide models; easier to just produce one specification when possible. Again, good to have sources, though. —Morven 04:31, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
I'll see what I can find on these topics, but I doubt there are firm numbers on the number of old 2-stroke engines in use compared to newer models. It may be difficult to find anything positive about foreign regulations. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:48, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the NMMA TC-W3 oil is not necessarily biodegradable. That specification refers to other qualities of the oil. Autochic sells marine oils, only two of which are biodegradable. Pennzoil sells three marine oils for 2-stroke engines, only one of which is biodegradable. A dealer has a lengthy "Oil Q & A" which never mentions biodegradability. These biodegrable oils may be available, but I haven't seen any indication that they are the preferred or the standard choice. -Willmcw 13:37, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
The CARB website indicates that the 2006 EPA standard requires emissions to be reduced by approximately 75%.[1] However, elsewhere it mentions that a 1999 PWC emits as much pollution in seven hours of operation as a 1999 automobile would emit in 100,000 miles of operation. [2] Therefore, the new level of equivalency is that a 2006 model PWC will emit in seven hours as as much emissions as a seven-year old car driven 25,000 miles, about two year's worth of usage for most car owners. Cleaner, but still far from clean. -Willmcw 13:56, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten

I have written a new 'Emissions' section - how about working from there to try and get a NPOV view of the whole issue?

As regards to this issue drowning out everything else about PWCs, how about writing some other sections about that? It's definitely short of info. Rather than removing the emissiosn controversy, add other things! —Morven 02:05, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

The biggest controversy seems to be whether sit-down PWCS are boring. More other information would be great. Their safety is another topic worthy of a paragraph. Thanks for your help in working on this article. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:02, May 5, 2005 (UTC)


We need a source for this:

Against this, industry groups such as the Personal Watercraft Industry Association point out that environmental groups continue to cite pollution levels of pre-regulation watercraft and ignore the improvements made to newer models; and furthermore, that the personal watercraft is unfairly singled out when they are no more polluting than other powered boats.

I looked around the PWIA site and couldn't find anything like this. Also, are there other industry groups? I thought that it was the only one. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:28, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

I mistakenly read their statement about noise pollution and applied it to emissions. They don't seem to claim that regular boats are equivalent in emissions, but they do claim it for noise. —Morven 02:52, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move page?

Is the "water craft" in "personal water craft" really two words? The wikipedia definition for watercraft is one word. If that is correct, this page should be moved to the proper title.--Daveswagon 06:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Another editor moved it to this title because, I believe he thought it made the initials "PWC" more logical. But I always see the term spelled "watercraft". If there's no objection I'll move it back. -Will Beback 07:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I have removed external links to discussion forums as they are a violation of WP:EL. -- MakeChooChooGoNow 09:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Miles per hour

In the article it states that PWC can travel up to 70mph or 96Kph. This conversion is wrong.

It should be in knots anyway. -Will Beback 23:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The orifice injury issue

Hi everyone. I just recently discovered the Susan Ford case which highlights the gory risk of orifice injuries from the powerful jet coming out of a PWC. On the one hand, this is a freak accident but on the other hand it indicates the extreme danger of PWCs. The opinion is: Ford v. Polaris Industries, Inc., 139 Cal. App. 4th 755 (2006). Do you guys think it's worth mentioning in the article? --Coolcaesar 08:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC) Also, to make clear how important the Ford case is, the Court of Appeal upheld the $3.75 million in damages awarded by the jury. That's all economic and noneconomic damages. No punitives were awarded. --Coolcaesar 08:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

One option would be to say that manufacturer's have been found liable for serious injuries inflicted on users by the devices, and then use the case as a source. Scanning through the case I see that they already had a warning label on the device covering the issue, plus the engineer had conducted tests, so this can't have been a freak accident. -Will Beback · † · 08:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Military Use

Would it be practical to put a lightly-armored partial encloser and a turreted .50 cal on a jetski? Does anyone know whether something like that has been done? 69.12.155.64 21:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not for us to decide whether it's practical. But if anyone finds a source on the topic we can include that info. -Will Beback · † · 22:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I know this was tried at least once. In the late-60s/early-70s the U.S. Marine Corps. expirimented with a militarized version of the AquaDart. I don't know if it was armored, but it was mounted with a Browning MG (I believe) and automatic granade launcher. I don't know how many were built in this configuration, or if they were factory-produced or merely custom modified, but it wasn't adopted. The AquaDart was not a ride-on, but rather a "drag-behind" if you will, with the driver's legs steering and dangling as shark bait. Roz666 04:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Water Plume

What is the idea behind the variable plume of water that is usally seen from the tail of one of these craft when the engine is running? Is it to increase the visibility of the craft or is it some other reason? This info would be good to include. EdX20 02:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)