One publication each, read end to end
Model timelines
Which machines each company made, year by year, restated from one named source per make. Every record states the years it covers, lists the years its source says nothing about, and prints each claim to be first with the publisher's name on it.
A list of machines by year, company by company. The sport's story is at How the sport got here, the reasons the machines changed at How the machines changed, and the first prototype at Where the sport came from.
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Kawasaki
One reference, not a manufacturer
A Kawasaki line from 1973 to 2022, restated from a single fiftieth anniversary gallery in an enthusiast magazine and graded accordingly. It is the thinnest of the three timelines on this site: thirteen years carry an entry and thirty-seven do not, because the publication chose the machines it thought mattered rather than listing a catalogue.
Source: The Watercraft Journal · 36 years with no record at all, listed on the page
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Sea-Doo
One reference, not a manufacturer
A year-by-year Sea-Doo line from 1968 to 2027, restated from a single enthusiast reference and graded accordingly. The engine and hull tables and the nine service notes are the part worth your time: they decide what is in your ski and what it costs to fix.
Source: JetSkiPlus · 20 years with no record at all, listed on the page
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Yamaha
The manufacturer, about its own product
Yamaha Motor's own model history, 1986 to 2027, restated. It is a first-party document, which makes it the strongest source on this site, and it still cannot answer a fitment question. Read the scope note before you use a year off it.
Yamaha as written history: Marine Jet, Yamaha's name for the same ski; Yamaha on its own machines, 2003 to 2009; The 30hp problem that shaped the first hull.
Source: Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. · 7 years with no record at all, listed on the page
None of this decides what fits. Each timeline uses the years its publication used, which are often release years. A model year is the year a machine is sold as, and it can differ from the year the machine came out by one either way, so a timeline year can be a year off the same machine's model years in the model reference. The reference is where fitment lives, and it is graded separately and more harshly. Where the two disagree, a manufacturer's parts document settles it.
| 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.
For how any of these companies came to exist, where the sport came from runs from the first prototype to Honda leaving the market, with the arguments between its sources printed rather than settled.
- How the sport got here: the sport as organised competition, from racing sources graded for reliability, with the claims nobody could source listed as held back.
- How the machines changed: the machines and the companies behind them, every section naming its source.
- Model timelines, this page: which machines each company made, year by year, from one named publication per make.
- Where the sport came from: who built the first one, from milestones graded one by one, including the two the sources contest.
3 makes · 163 model entries · 71 years with no model entry