Sea-Doo 3D: One To Three
Sea-Doo 3D: Three exhilarating riding experiences could make Sea-Doo's latest offering a winner.
March 7, 2004
Gentle to moderately aggressive turns are as easy in the Vert mode on the 3D as they are on any personal watercraft with a high-performance hull.
Personal watercraft sales have taken a beating in recent years. Credit or blame what you will, emissions issues, access restrictions or even simple market saturation—at its peak in the mid-1990s the industry moved more than 200,000 units in a single year— but sales are less than a third of what they once were. Two manufacturers even abandoned the market.
Nothing, neither the four-seaters introduced several years back or the clean-running four-strokes added most recently, has been able to revive the market, which has survived on three-riders models. At least until now.
Enter the 3D personal watercraft from Sea-Doo, the new-for-2004 transformer of the watercraft world that the company introduced to the public today. (Members of the marine press were given a sneak preview of the model in late January on Bimini island.) The people at Sea-Doo are betting—big time—that the three-in-one watercraft will breathe life into the market, at least for Sea-Doo.
"We already own the three-seater segment, but the industry is not growing," said Tim McKercher, the company's North American media and public relations specialist, during the Bimini event. "We need to grow the market. We need to reach out to a new generation of buyers. With three different riding experiences, the 3D does that."
Trifecta
There are three configurations—Kart, Moto and Vert—in which the 3D can be ridden. As advertised, each offers a distinct and, to this rider's tastes, exhilarating experience. (If Extreme Sports terminology seems familiar, it's no accident. That's the buying segment Sea-Doo hopes to tap.) To a large degree, credit for the model's superior performance in all configurations must go to the award-winning XP hull, a staple of the Sea-Doo line, on which it is based.
The Kart setup involves snapping a stout, supportive bucket seat (a $600 option buyers would be nuts to forego) into a dedicated position in the watercraft's tray. To compensate for the leg lengths of various riders, Sea-Doo offers footwell extensions. Riders sit in the bucket seat and actually drive the watercraft like a Go-Kart.
Watching the Kart-setup 3D in action before I drove it, I wondered what kind of pounding it would give my 43-year-old lower back. The answer was none. The manufacturer did a brilliant job of blending rigidity and flexibility into the bucket seat, and that, combined with how easy the builder made it to brace with your legs in the footwells, takes the sting out of the ride. In fact, the Kart configuration is perhaps the most comfortable of the three.
The Kart-configured 3D handles like a European sports car.
And if the sensations of speed and hard G-force cornering are your thing, Kart also is the most fun. That's especially true on smooth, where the Kart-configured 3D handles like a European sports car. By today's standards, the personal watercraft's 110-hp two-stroke carbureted engine is mild — Sea-Doo has a 215-hp model in its line. But it was plenty for the 3D in all iterations.
Remove the bucket seat, release a lever and the 3D is ready for Vert operation. It looks like a traditional stand-up personal watercraft with a lift-up steering column, but it's a whole lot easier to ride. Thanks to the XP hull, the Vert-configured 3D is so stable you can stand up in the well when the watercraft isn't even moving. Try that on a traditional stand-up and you'll end up underwater.
Gentle to moderately aggressive turns are as easy in the Vert mode on the 3D as they are on any personal watercraft with a high-performance hull. Full-throttle, hard-charging carves take a bit more skill, but they're certainly not beyond the abilities of a moderately experienced sit-down rider who's willing to learn. And the learning curve is short.
"In Vert, the 3D is as challenging as you want it to be," said McKercher.
Being based on a wider sit-down hull, rather than a traditional, narrow-beam stand-up, the Vert-dressed 3D washes out more easily in turns — at least for inexperienced riders. On the other hand, the cornering-bite of traditional stand-up hulls can intimidate rookies.
Flip out a seat and a pedestal from under the steering column, lock them in their respective positions and the 3D transforms to Moto mode. That's where the 3D most resembles a traditional personal watercraft, albeit one with a narrow saddle. In the Moto configuration, the 3D handles every bit as well as a full-saddle XP model—and that means crisp and positive.
Sea-Doo did an amazing job of finding the optimal center of gravity in the 3D for Kart, Vert and Moto. However, to its credit the company added a manual pump-trim function, adapted from its discontinued HX model, for fine-tuning.
Added Attraction
In the Moto configuration, the 3D handles every bit as well as a full-saddle XP model—and that means crisp and positive.
Will three distinctly different and exhilarating riding experiences from one personal watercraft reinvigorate the entire market? If the thinking of the people at Sea-Doo is correct, if the three-in-one experience is compelling enough to attract a range of new personal watercraft enthusiasts, then the answer could be yes. If not, the 3D will end up as an ingeniously designed, well-engineered oddity.
My bet is on success, and not just because the new model can appeal to an array of riders. The 3D will be priced around $7,000, which places it slightly above entry level and significantly less that top-of-the-line. It is within the range of the 20-somethings it hopes to attract, and within the range of parents, already PWC owners, who want something that will appeal to their teenagers.
With the release of the 3D, Sea-Doo has added a new dimension to the personal watercraft market. Make that three of them.
