All of your questions on the history of jet skis can be answered below! The American born Clayton Jacobson II invented jet skis in 1973. The first successful internal pump-jet personal watercraft was a stand-up Kawasaki they called the “Jet Ski.”

When was the first Jet Ski made?

The stand-up Kawasaki Jet Ski was the first commercially successful personal watercraft in America, having been released in 1972 (after reaching a license agreement with the inventor of the Sea-Doo, Clayton Jacobson II when his license agreement with Bombardier expired).

Who invented the first Jet Ski?

Occasionally also called a water scooter (the original phrasing), the first personal watercraft (or PWC) was the brainchild of Clayton Jacobson II, who further developed the idea of an older and less sophisticated series of models that were built in Europe during the 1950s.