Sea-Doo’s budget-priced Spark already sports the playful feel and handling of old-school personal watercraft. The new-for-’17 Spark Trixx attempts to take that fun to the next level with a collection of add-ons designed to further enhance the craft’s freestyle characteristics. By Jeff Hemmel, Boating Magazine.
The primary addition is a retooled version of Sea-Doo’s electronic Variable Trim System (VTS). For the Trixx, Sea-Doo increased both the upward and downward range of the jet-pump nozzle, allowing angles as high as 17 degrees upward and negative-6 degrees downward. It’s the 10 degrees of additional upward movement that makes the most difference.
Tap the trim-control toggle on the left side of the handlebars and the Trixx pulls a serious wheelie, pointing its bow to the sky with minimal throttle. Chocks at the rear of the footwells, angled at 60 degrees, allow the driver to maintain control when the running angle gets vertical. The third component, a new handlebars column with adjustable aluminum riser, raises the handlebars as much as 6 inches beyond the norm to give the rider additional leverage.
Sea-Doo’s Intelligent Brake and Reverse (iBR) uses a modified, electronically controlled reverse bucket to offer both braking power at speed and gearlike forward, neutral and reverse handling around the dock or ramp at your lakefront home.
Even relatively novice riders were quickly performing basic wheelies during Sea-Doo’s press introduction of the craft. More-experienced PWC types were turning that bow-to-the-sky posture into spinning tail stands or upward hops in short order. Trimming the nozzle down below the norm was promised to make it easier to stab the bow into the water after a jump, or even sub the nose, but we found these maneuvers a little harder to pull off. Clearly, the Trixx prefers to send it skyward. That’s not to say the fun is limited to the vertical. We found trimming the nozzle upward also made the craft easier than ever to slip out in power slides, or even execute 180-degree spins on the water’s surface.
The new Trixx uses the same reinforced polypropylene hull and deck, as well as a 90 hp Rotax 900 HO ACE engine, a combination that takes good advantage of power-to-weight ratio to achieve speeds of 48 mph and surprisingly zippy throttle response. Sound slow? It’s not, especially given the craft’s size and playful mindset.
Re-posted by Scott Freerksen “The Lake Guy”
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