JS400

The Jet Ski 400 or JS400 was the first mass-produced stand-up personal water craft produced by Kawasaki. All Jet Ski 400's utilized 398cc two-cylinder two-stroke engines adapted from Kawasaki's snowmobile line. The Jet Ski 400 was produced in at least two colour schemes. The earlier versions were a pale lime green while the later models were bright yellow with black decals. The earliest models of the Jet Ski 400 had hand-laid fibreglass hulls and wooden bulkheads. The Jet Ski 400 is the craft which sparked the standup watercraft's explosive popularity, which lasted through the 1980s and early 1990s.

After 1974 the hulls were mass produced using SMC which is the same method used in the mass production of small boats. The jet ski 400 used an axial flow jet pump while the later JS550 models use a mixed flow pump.

In 1982, Kawasaki released the JS550 based upon the JS440's hull. Many of the parts between these JS models are interchangeable.

External links

* [http://www.pwia.org/ Personal Watercraft Industry Association]
* [http://www.awahq.com/ American Watercraft Association]
* [http://www.uscgboating.org/ U.S. Coast Guard Boating Safety]
* [http://www.x-h2o.com/ X-h2o stand-up/sport related Forum]
* [http://greenhulk.net/forums/ Green Hulk Performance and speed related sit-down Forum]