What do you say when the head guy at Yamaha’s water sport division calls you up and says, “hey, how bout you guys come out and ride all our new WaveRunners, it’ll be a great day, all the new supercharged models will be there for you to thrash and we are putting on a huge buffet lunch and ….”, he really didn’t need to say any more, that’s all I needed as an excuse to get out of the Tracks office and there was that sour smell emanating from the art department? Gotta go boys, important review to go to…
Heading towards Penrith and the Regatta Centre was against my better judgment, no waves out here and what’s a ”WaveRunner” with out waves huh? I overcame the nausea that strikes when I deviate more than 10 clicks from the coast and found my self looking at a full set up complete with over 10 new WaveRunner's, a specially set up course, a few promo girls and a marquee. What all this for me? Sweet.
A host of WaveRunner royalty, other media and retailers soon put pay to my self importance and we got down to business, that is riding these things. FZ, FXHO, FXSHO VX, …Bla Bla. "Just gimme something that’s gunna tear my arms out!”, I said while shifting in my stance like a kid needing to piss. Well, that’s what we really want to know about, isn’t it? Power? Grunt?
Well as I found out it’s a whole new world, I saddled up next to Mark Visser, big wave charger and Yamaha proponent and got a new perspective of these watercraft, that can mean life or death to someone like him. The various hull designs and construction materials come with a phenomenal amount of R&D, as each model has a purpose and distinct power and handling characteristics that make them more suitable for different applications.
For me the bottom feeder VX was more forgiving and easier-to-handle ride and would suit my needs better than the FXSHO which is a big luxury supercharged beast of a thing.
So was it all about the grunt? No it was all about what you want to use it for and how much fun it's going to give you. Talk to your WaveRunner dealer about your experience and what you want to use it for and they will be the guys to help you out.
