TOPIC: Those things look dangerous!

I've noticed several posts on early personal watercraft. They really look like they could be easily flipped, or have the rider thrown, on anything less than calm waters.
Using the outboards of the day, seems that prop is an accident waiting to happen. Just wondering if any one has any stories of injuries? Did they ever try and ban them, over safety concerns?

I worked in the USCG Office of Boating Safety during most of the life of the early PWC's up until late 2004. Some of the proposals for PWC's using outboards were pretty bad. We couldn't ban them but we made it pretty obvious that having an exposed prop on a boat that you were intended to fall out of was a really bad idea. Of course none of them survived. The market killed them, not the govt. Yamaha, Kawasaki and Bombardier, to name a few just simply made far superior products.

Me testing a Kawasaki for the USCG.

I might add there are still some around. Here's one you can build. http://www.rqriley.com/hr.html

Hell

I had a Yamaha WaveRaider 1100 triple
over-built it to about 225hp....it weighed 400lbs
and had NO regard for human life.
would run 102mph on good water.