Ker-SPLASH! is a reference book for boating and water skiing hobbyists. It is a comprehensive analogy of the models of all types of recreational powerboats on the market now and in the recent past. Note that Ker-Splash 2 is a second edition of the first Ker-Splash! The second book contains all the information in the first book in an updated version, plus a whole lot more! There is no advantage whatsoever to choosing the first Ker-Splash instead of the second, no matter what type of boat interests you. All the brands are discussed with details about the status of the companies, the company histories, and the products produced. Contact addresses are included for all the major manufacturers of boats, engines, skis, wakeboards, boat accessories, and ski accessories. The highest quality retailers of these products are also included. Not only does Ker-SPLASH! include entertaining-but-true boating stories, but several chapters include how-to issues such as: learning to ski, teaching to ski, learning to slalom, riding a kneeboard, towing a skier, selecting a boat, skis, and accessories, and selecting a personal slalom ski. The book is for the neophyte or the experienced boater.
The target audience for Ker-SPLASH! is not necessarily as sophisticated in the specific hobby as that intended for Plastic Ozone Daydream. Most of that book was written over a period of fifteen years, originally intended for a Corvette club target audience, and then it was re-edited for a little broader audience. Ker-SPLASH! was composed entirely in 2001 as an up-to-date reference book that reflects the massive changes in the boating industry of the last few years. I researched the material mostly on the internet to secure the most recent, valid data on the status of each corporate entity discussed in the book. My four decades as a power boating enthusiast were brought into the book’s realm to complete the picture of power boating, as it exists in 2002. My intent was to cover a lot of previously unavailable material, as well as widely divergent material that at least had not been available in one location. Fishing and sailing are hobbies practiced by huge numbers of Americans, but both fields have massive numbers of books written about them and both hobbies bore me silly. I was not blessed with an athletic body, and the usual array of competitive sports bore me silly, too. I am a motorhead by nature. I like sports cars, motorcycles, and powerboats about equally. Ker-SPLASH! is my homage to the motors that float. I did not intend to insult the intelligence of the reader or repeat tired, old advice about how to determine the actual condition of a used boat or how to drive the boat into a docking space or drop an anchor. I assume that anyone who buys my book already knows to check the fluids in an engine and how not to drop the anchor on his foot. I have not assumed that the reader has owned a powerboat before or that he knows how to waterski. I have also not assumed that he knows that jet skis were originally an extension of the motorcycle market or that Cypress Gardens was the pioneering purveyor of water skis or that the booming cocaine market of The Eighties inspired Miami Vice, which brought recreational offshore powerboats to the attention of the public. The audience for Ker-SPLASH! lies in that vast ocean between the person who has just decided that the purchase of a ski boat could lead to a healthy, family-oriented, weekend pastime to the person who has been skiing for decades, but is ready to graduate to another level, whether that level is adding a wakeboard to his toy box or adding a half-million-dollar speed monster to his garage.
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