This is my third boat, a 1975 18' Tahiti jet boat, which I purchased in August of 1984, when I needed a cure for my increasing need for speed.  Powered by a 460 ci. Ford engine, and coupled to a Berkeley jet drive, this boat would hit a top speed of between 60 and 63 MPH.  Like most jet boats, this one was a blast to drive, as it could turn on a dime, and stop on one as well. It was also a great boat to ski behind (As long as the Jet-O-Vator didn't get "accidentally" bumped up), as it provided a steady pull from the start, and you could adjust the forward/reverse flow gate to just move the boat forward enough to keep the ski rope taut before taking off. The downside to a jet powered ski boat is that you had to avoid running over the ski rope and having it sucked into the water intake, and wrapping around the shaft (Not a pretty sight, and fairly difficult to remove). 

 The boat was equipped with a set of over the transom open headers, which gave it a race car sound.  This was very macho and something I enjoyed at the time, but would be a bit too loud for my tastes today.  When I got the boat, it didn't come with a cockpit cover, and I was too cheap at the time to buy one.  So consequently, the boat suffered the effects of exposure. The seats rotted out and the clearcoat on the metalflake paint started to peel. The exhaust headers needed to be replaced as well, and at $750 a set, I was not too anxious to do that either.  So I ended up selling it, along with the Westwind, in 1986 and put the money down on a new boat, a 1986 Hydrostream.