Red-Hot Blues

It may be the dead of winter, but jet ski retailers are already looking forward to the summer of 1997. And who can blame them? With waves of thrill-seeking consumers powering the market, it seems clear that personal watercraft are not about to lose forward momentum any time soon.

Dan Beaulac is one entrepreneur counting on just that. The 27-year-old co-founder of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Shuttle Craft International Inc. expects to chart sales in excess of $20 million this year for his fiberglass V-hull boat that turns a personal watercraft into a jet boat. "We definitely saw a need in the marketplace [for this]," says Beaulac.

As recently as 1993, sales of personal watercraft barely topped 100,000 units annually. That figure has approximately doubled in only a few years. "The personal watercraft industry has been in a growth phase for the last few years, mainly because of the product," asserts Beaulac, who launched Shuttle Craft four years ago with partners Wayne Washington, 28, and Trevor Hewison, 30. "It's a lot of fun and delivers a lot of thrills and excitement."

Get your motors running. . . .

This article was originally published in the January 1997 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Red-Hot Blues.