Recent speculation about the possibility of Sea-Doo equipping future models with Apple CarPlay – sharing technology developed for its sister brand Can-Am – got us thinking about April Fools jokes by The Watercraft Journal that have unwittingly predicted the future.
Amid serious speculation about Sea-Doo, the news on 1 April 2024 that Kawasaki would adopt Apple CarPlay on 2025 Ultra models was a well crafted prank by the world’s biggest Jet Ski website.
The latest instalment followed a long line of convincing April Fool’s jokes from The Watercraft Journal over the years.
A number of April Fools jokes were seemingly so accurate, many people either missed the gag, or failed to see the funny side of it.
In a recent YouTube broadcast, editor-in-chief of The Watercraft Journal, Kevin Shaw, told his audience:
“I take pride in my April Fools jokes because a good April Fools joke has to be believable.
“I hate dumb April Fools jokes. If you’re gonna do a prank, it’s gotta be done right. One year I did two of them, to make sure people would at least believe one of them.”
The Watercraft Journal usually includes in its April Fools stories a hyperlink to one of the alleged sources for the article.
However, the link goes to Rick Astley’s music film clip for “Never Going To Give You Up” on YouTube, which has more than 1.5 billion views.
This practice is commonly referred to as being ‘Rick Rolled’ and is intended to be an indication the viewer has been duped.
“But people don’t click on (hyperlinks) because people are lazy,” said Shaw.
He says the April Fools joke that caused the biggest stir was about a secret plan to move the Jet Ski world finals from its longstanding location in Lake Havasu and instead be hosted in Florida (screenshot pictured above).
“Woah! People were calling the Mayor of Lake Havasu City screaming at them. (One of the community leaders) exploded, she was so mad, she unfriended me from Facebook.
“I’m like, it’s a joke. I even got phone calls on Easter Sunday saying I would burn in hell because I dared joke the world finals were going to move from a wet little spot in the desert to central Florida.”
Other April Fools favourites from Kevin Shaw:
“In 2019 we reported that Yamaha was looking at introducing a helmet communication system between a rider and passenger like they do for their big road bikes.
“We said it was designed for the Yamaha FX for long distance riders and we used a really blurry image to make it look real.”
That partcular story started with:
Sometimes leaks happen from the unlikeliest sources.
Over the weekend a reader sent us a very low resolution image pulled from Yamaha’s own online accessory store that supposedly had been posted earlier last week, and quickly taken down.
But not before some eagle-eyed Yamaha enthusiasts grabbed it first!
“On the same day – and we normally never do two news stories in a day – we reported that the US Coast Guard retro actively decreed that all brands of personal watercraft within the next six months must have the Yamaha visibiity spout fitted.
“On new and old models, including all Sea-Doos and all Kawasakis, to bring them up to code with the Yamahas that already had it.
“I used legal (wording) and made it sound very real, and hyperlinked to the legislation, but the link went to Rick Astley.
“People spent hours trying to find the law I had written. And of course it didn’t exist.”
A screenshot of the 2024 April Fools joke above shows the ‘S’ logo for the Volkswagen Automotive Group’s Spanish brand Seat, which was a clue this was a photoshopped image.
Below are the links to The Watercraft Journal’s best April Fools joke stories.
2024: Kawasaki Ultra range to get Apple CarPlay
2021: Kawasaki replaces famous “Team Green” colour scheme with “Team Fuchsia”
2019: US Coast Guard mandates visibility spouts on all Jet Skis or riders face big fines
2019: Yamaha WaveRunner to launch ‘helmet to helmet’ communications
2018: Jet Ski world finals move to Florida
2015: Sea-Doo to launch petrol-electric hybrid-powered Spark