Just found this great video on the history of the Hamilton jet. A friend of mine had one of the later Hamilton jet boats with the Chevrolet V8 which was a great boat,- lots of power. Also saw Jetmark (mentioned in the vid) racing in powerboat races in the 70s on the Auckland harbour. From an idea in the back blocks of the South Island of NZ, to being used all over the world was an amazing achievement.

My 20 ft Hartley cabin boat (1979) was designed for a Hamilton single stage jet, but I changed it to a NZ built stern drive similar to a Melhop designed unit (Melhop was mentioned in the vid.) Melhop made a stern drive with a forward facing propellor and 360deg steering ( think I still have a sales brochure from them in the 70s). Some interesting boat stuff in the early days. Probably 90% outboards these days in boats under 25ft.

I built My Hartley model to represent my original boat with a jet. Most of the boat designers in NZ in the 60s and 70s offered designs to use either Hamilton jets, V-drives, direct drives or outboards.


JB