Key Figures · Racer

Harry Goatcher

Printed in 1987 results and rankings in a 1988 magazine, and credited by a helmet advertisement with fourth place in the 1988 IJSBA World Jet-Ski Championship.

1. The early years, in print, 1981 to 1993 (this page's records)
2. The makers and their machines, 1985 to 2005 (this page's records)
3. Noise, safety and federal rules, 1996 to 2002
4. The rule book years, 2002 to 2018
5. Three rule books, 2021 to 2026

1990200020102020

---

Results

1987 · Likely

Personal Watercraft Illustrated, volume 2 number 1 (1988), read only as search highlights, prints Harry Goatcher second under a Modified Closed Course list whose heading the scan cuts to the letters Pr. The highlights print no event heading beside the list; the archive reads it, from the issue's own pointer to its results section, as a result of the 1987 IJSBA World Finals, which is an inference.

Sources: PWI 1988 search text: 1987 racing

1987 · Likely

The issue's rankings, headed Final 1987 IJSBA World Rankings, print 5, Harry Goatcher. The highlights run several ranking tables together and print no table heading beside his line, so the table he is ranked in is not known.

Sources: PWI 1988 search text: 1987 racing

Likely

A feature in the same issue on Jet Ski Bay, which it says is what the locals call the place, says that one of Jet Ski Bay's regulars is IJSBA competitor Harry Goatcher (the scan prints the initials as [JSBA), and another passage names Harry Goatcher, of a Jet Pilot squadron as the garbled words read, among hopefuls going through their paces. The highlights print no year beside these passages.

Sources: PWI 1988 search text: 1987 racing

Likely

An advertisement by Arai in Cycle News of 11 January 1989, congratulating its 1988 champions and near-champions, prints under WATER SPORTS the line HARRY GOATCHER/4th Place IJSBA World Jet-Ski Championship. It is an advertisement and says what the advertiser said; no result sheet of that championship is held. The tie to the racer of the magazine's 1987 results is the full name and the IJSBA racing both describe, which is the archive's inference.

Sources: Cycle News 11 January 1989 Arai ad

Elsewhere in the archive

• History chapter: The IJSBA and the World Finals
• Event: IJSBA World Finals
• Organisation: International Jet Sports Boating Association
• Era: The early years, in print
• Era: The makers and their machines

What the archive has not read (3)

• No IJSBA result sheet from the 1980s has been found (searched archive.org's full text and 645 issues of Cycle News from 1980 to 1992, 2026-10-07), so no title or placing is read off a sheet. The association's champions page, a finding aid, does not list him (checked 2026-10-07).
• Personal Watercraft Illustrated volume 2 number 1 can be read only as archive.org search highlights, because the item's files are gone (checked 2026-10-07). The highlights print no event heading beside the results line used here, and they print, just before its list, a sentence on Personal Watercraft Federation action in Ventura, California. The issue says its Racing Review section carries the full World Finals results, and it also prints the heading of that Ventura race, of 9 November 1987, so reading the list as a World Finals result is the archive's inference.
• The association's hall of fame roster lists a Harry Goatcher among its 2007 inductees, and its announcement of that year's ceremony, as reposted, names him among the 15 competitors inducted. Neither says more, so the honour is not used here (checked 2026-10-07).

Documents cited on this page

• PWI 1988 search text: 1987 racing (archive.org): Personal Watercraft Illustrated volume 2 number 1 of 1988 (archive.org full-text search highlights: results section, 1987 results and rankings, racer mentions), Personal Watercraft Illustrated, read through the Internet Archive's full-text search, 1988; enthusiast media, medium. Search highlights from the same emptied item as the PWI February 1988 search text: short OCR passages around the term searched, not the pages, and not in page order. They hold the issue's pointers to its results section (the Racing Review, which it says carries the full World Finals results, and a heading there for a Personal Watercraft Federation race at Ventura, California, of 9 November 1987), results lines whose class headings are partly cut and whose event heading is not printed beside them, passages whose shared words give the order in which the scan prints those lists, the rankings headed Final 1987 IJSBA World Rankings with several tables run together, a caption on X-2 results, a feature on Jet Ski Bay, and the caption that names Bill Chapin. Medium as a period magazine read as highlights only. Places beside names and the names of four riders the archive leaves out under its minors rule are replaced in the held copy. The link opens the item's archive.org page; the highlights were read through the full-text search, as the held copy says.
• Cycle News 11 January 1989 Arai ad (archive.org): Cycle News, 11 January 1989, Arai advertisement congratulating its 1988 champions (OCR excerpt), Cycle News, advertisement by Arai, issue held by the Internet Archive, 1989-01-11; enthusiast media, medium. Heading lines and one WATER SPORTS line of a helmet maker's year-end advertisement for the 1988 season, from the issue's raw OCR: HARRY GOATCHER/4th Place IJSBA World Jet-Ski Championship. Medium as a period advertisement, which proves what the advertiser said and not that a result sheet agrees. The two watercraft lines above it, naming other riders, are not copied.

Cite this page

“Harry Goatcher”, BaddJet archive, https://baddjetarchive.com/key-figures/harry-goatcher/

Add the date you read it.

• On Key Figures, by name
• Previous figure: Gyorgy Kasza
• Next figure: Harry Klemm