Looking back 12 months ago, Kawasaki had just launched their all new Kawasaki Ultra 300x, this is the first produced personal watercraft in the world to have 300 horsepower standard from the factory.
Gossip from around the world was that it was just a beefed up Ultra 260 from the previous years, but as it arrived people started to look into it and it had actually had a fair few changes from its predecessor.
So yes, it’s up 40 horsepower from the Ultra 260 but no it’s not just more boost, well there is a little more boost but there is also a completely new supercharger setup. Kawasaki had redesigned the induction system by adding a Twin Vortices Series (TVS) supercharger. (This is the same supercharger that’s used in the 638 horsepower Corvette ZR1). It delivers 6.3 psi more boost than the previous model; bringing it up to 17.3psi which nets a total of 300 horsepower at just 7750 rpm (measured at the crankshaft).
The internals of the engine had also been upgraded to help out with the extra power, new pistons, crankshaft, stronger cam chain and upgraded crank.
Also added to the 2011 300x was electric trim which has been available on most of the opposition skis for some time, so it was good to see Kawasaki catch up. This is adjustable by the switches on the left hand side of the handlebars. On the right hand side of the bars you will find a blue button, the button takes care of the adjustable cruise control and the ability to limit speed to five mph when piloting through a No Wake zone. I never used it but I know it will come in handy.
The exterior of the ski still resembles the 260, but has a slightly different upper front on it, consisting of a lower nose and a wider front hatch and some of the largest storage to be seen in a ski, and to top it off most of the ski’s here in NZ are available in the ever popular Kawasaki Green.
I’ve been lucky enough to spend a few hours over the last 12 months on one of the first 300x’s to hit the water in NZ and this ski has had a pretty busy 12 months.
If we cast our minds back 12 months ago, most of the personal watercraft races in NZ were preparing themselves for the 2011 NZ Jet Sport Nationals in Rotorua. Chris Farnley from Christchurch was an exception, he was sunning it up on holiday in the Australia, but lucky enough for him he managed to track down Kevin from SkiMD in Auckland to get hold of his brand spanking new, zero hours on the clock 300x and have him in the process of running it in for him.
By the time Chris turned up to pilot his all new ski at the NZ Jet Sport Nationals, Kev had managed to get four hours on the clock for him. Chris had never even sat on the ski until 10 minutes prior to his first race, with this in mind he had a great weekend up against some super tough competition.
His standings for the weekend were
2nd Watercoss stock, (behind Darrell Dermott also on a 300X)
3rd Vet runabout open,
3rd Expert/Elite Runabout Stock ,
4th Watercross open
This was the start of a full-on 12 months for Farnleys Jetskis and their Kawasaki Ultra 300x.
After this the ski is shipped back to Christchurch, on arrival Chris thought it was in order to throw a release party, would you believe you can fit over 300 bottles of Corona in the front of a jet ski, well they proved you can.
From now-on this ski became their number one demo ski, and it started clocking up the hours in a hurry.
It’s the month of May now so the weather is cooling down, so the hours slow down, yeah right. Instead this ski becomes the loan race ski in the South Island Winter Endurance Series. With Chris’s busy commitments he wasn’t able to race in the South Island series like he hoped so what he did was lend the ski to fellow competitors to prove this was the ski to have for the endurance races.
Round one, Lake Wahola, James French onboard the 300x managed to bring it home in 2nd place behind Phil Barret on his new 300x.
Round two, James Craw onboard the Farnley ski saw it collect 3rd place behind a very worked up Yamaha FZR and Phil Barret also on his 300x.
Round Three at Caroline Bay Timaru. Saw super rough water comes out to play making it a very hard race. With Chris himself and Shannon ‘Gunns’ Clark teamed together, they cleaned up in the teams event.
Round Four, saw a similar result of round two, with James Craw bringing home 3rd place behind another worked up Yamaha FZR of Mike Kennedy’s and Phil Barret on his superfast 300x.
In-between all the racing, the ski came along on most of the NZ Jetski social rides, used as a demo ski at the Canterbury Marine Festival at Lake hood (burning through something like 300 litres of fuel) and also a huge amount of demoing out on the water, it was gaining hours faster than a $10 Rolex brought in Thailand.
Round two of the South Island Summer series. Chris enters the large ski in the Run-about open class and managed to muscle the large ski round the short course and brought home a 2nd place for the day.
So twelve months later, the ski has 153 hours on the clock and is still going strong with regular servicing and expected maintenance it proves Kawasaki have got it right with the 300x
As I mentioned above, I’ve been lucky enough to spend a few hours over the last 12 months on this ski, my first impressions were ‘man this thing is talky’ and ‘how cool is the noise the supercharger makes’ Getting the large hull out of the water in a hurry is no problem for the 300 horsepower engine, the ski turns in and handles a lot better than the previous 260 horsepower model, super comfortable in very choppy condition. I found something not quite right about the seat, where I wanted to sit was the join of the two-part seat, and the off throttle assisting steering seemed very unpredictable, the off throttle assisting steering is there so when you are at idle the engine will speed up slightly giving you power to turn the ski. It caught me off guard a couple of times, but I’m sure with some more time you may be able to work out when it will kick in and not.
I also spent some time on the back of the ski as a passenger which I don’t do very often, but for once even at high speeds I was happy,the large seat and well place seat grip made it very easy to hold on, and also when using the ski to tow a water skier proved simple by using the learners key to limit the power and speed, meaning the rider just has to pull back the trigger the whole way and once the skier was up out of the water buttoning off, and cruising was then simple. {see below for the video}
12 months have passed, and the 2012 model is out now, but the only changes are cosmetic with some changing in the graphics.
All in all an amazing fast ski, the large hull suits the rough conditions we are used to here in NZ, but it still knows how to get out of the water and up onto plane in charm conditions.
At the time of writing this, the RRP on a band new 2012 Kawasaki Ultra 300x is $25,995
And you can download a brochure here : Kawasaki NZ – Ultra 300x PDF
