A bunch of us were out on the river having fun one Thursday after work.  Doug, riding his 750, was in the water and getting ready to come back up.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t looking ahead of his craft as he started giving it the throttle.  I was circling him as he gave it the gas, and didn’t notice until it was too late that he didn’t see me.  No person was seriously injured, but the 440 obviously didn’t fare too well.  Although Doug’s ski needed some work done below the waterline, he got off easier than I did. 

The picture at right shows the extent of the damage with the motor removed.  Everyone who looked at it told me to get a new hull to put around my souped-up motor.  Since that was going to be pretty expensive, I decided to repair the damage. 

JetSki hulls are made of a plastic reinforced resin very similar to fiberglass, which was used for the repair.  To repair the damage, all the loose pieces of hull were super-glued together to form a framework.  Then, as can be seen below, holes were drilled around all the broken pieces to provide anchor points for the fiberglass.  What I didn’t get a picture of was the frame jig I built to hold the hull “square” while the repairs cured. 

A whole lot of block sanding later, the picture below shows the painted ski just before the bottom decal was applied.