Reference
Model Reference
Pick a make for its model lines A to Z. Each of the 273 lines has its own page with its years, engine, strokes, fuel system, hull type and the document each figure came from.
Model lines, by make
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Kawasaki
57 model lines, 1976 to 2026
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Sea-Doo
123 model lines, 1988 to 2027
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Yamaha
93 model lines, 1987 to 2027
The model reference informs a fitment question; it does not decide it. Before ordering a part, check it against the maker’s shop manual, an owner’s manual or the machine itself. 1135 of 1254 model years are unverified, and the engine figure is the number the records hold: for some makes the one in the model name, for some rows a measured size, and each make page says which. Hull type, stand-up or sit-down (a runabout), is printed in the At a glance box on each line page.
Stand-up: the Yamaha SuperJet (4-stroke), a Yamaha studio photo with no model year given, so not what a period stand-up looked like.
Photo by Yamaha Watercraft Group, "Superjet_Profile", CC BY 2.0.
How we know: its hull is stand-up in this machine's own record, the word its model line page prints.
Sit-down, a runabout: the Yamaha GP1800, photographed by Yamaha with no model year given, and not a period machine.
Photo by Yamaha Watercraft Group, "GP1800-Red-Profile_01", CC BY 2.0.
How we know: the GP1800 record gives a sit-down hull, and the glossary defines a runabout as a craft ridden sitting down.
The other references
None of these is about fitment; they answer when, why and where from.
- Model timelines: What each company launched and in what order, 163 model entries across 3 makes from one named publication each, and the 71 years with no model entry counted; release years, which can sit a year from a US model year.
- How the machines changed: 4 articles, 1970 to 2027, 3 on Yamaha and 1 on Jetpilot, every section naming its source and every article listing what its sources cannot show; 1 is cited paragraph by paragraph to Yamaha's own dealer magazine.
- Yamaha News index: The magazine 2 of those articles cite: 76 issues of the magazine, 1986 to 2009, of which 25 have been read end to end, with nothing rehosted.
- Where the sport came from: Who built the first one, in 11 milestones from 1965 to 2009, 2 of them printed as contested rather than resolved.
- Games: 36 dedicated video games, 9 of them carrying a maker's licence, from the years the sport was big enough to sell one.
- How we know: What verified and unverified mean on these pages, and what it takes to move a row from one to the other.
- What changed: 182 dated change notes across 48 records on 24 pages, newest 2026-10-30, each one saying what moved on a page after it was published and why.
| 1972 | 1973 | |
|---|---|---|
| Came out | October 1972 | |
| Sold as | 1973 model year |
| 1986 | 1987 | |
|---|---|---|
| Came out | November 1986 | |
| First Yamaha row in the model reference | WaveRunner (WR500), 1987 |
In both records the second year falls one year after the first, so two sources that count the same machine differently can disagree by exactly that much.
How we know: The dated milestones on Where the sport came from, and the model reference's own rows.
3 makes · 273 model lines · 1254 model rows · 119 verified