Catalina Race a Wimbledon of Boat Skiing

“It’s like the Oklahoma Land Rush,” Dan Stiel said. “Picture 100 high-powered boats--each towing its own skier--taking off at exactly the same time. Long Beach Harbor literally churns, almost froths .”

The noise alone--heralding the 9 a.m. start of the 40th annual Catalina Ski Race on Sunday--rivals that of the Indy 500, and the similarity doesn’t end there. With 100 boats and 100 skiers stampeding for position, each straining to lead the pack through a comparatively narrow breakwater opening, the effect is rather like trying to force a dozen peas through a one-pea funnel, and the devil take the hindmost.

Scatter and String Out

Once through the Queen’s Gate opening, the skiers scatter and string out, each taking his own tack toward Catalina Island (and some missing it completely!). An eighth of a mile off Avalon Bay, skiers round the mark (a 65-foot Chris Craft) and head for home--31 miles away, for a total of 62 statute miles.

Along the way, the waterborne contend with sharks (in abundance this year); freighters and their wakes (always a problem); whales and porpoises (naturally inquisitive, they’ve been known to surface for a look-see directly in skiers’ paths. Curiosity has yet to kill the cetacean, but there have been a few bruised feelings on both sides).

With arms and legs of marmalade, the skiers complete the course back in Long Beach Harbor, directly in front of the Viscount (formerly Hilton) Hotel, one of the race’s major sponsors along with First Interstate Bank. Silver-plated trophies are awarded in 11 ski classes and 7 boat categories. And that’s it. No cash. No appearance fees. No shoe contracts. Just a rollicking good ride and a year’s worth of bragging rights.

Why, then, is the race renowned enough to draw competitors from seven countries?

“It’s simply the most grueling water-ski race on the globe,” Stiel said, “--one of skiing’s Triple Crown races, along with Imola, Italy, and Botany Bay, Australia. Long Beach-Catalina, though, that’s the Wimbledon of the sport.

“We get the world champions, who tend to be in their late teens or early 20s,” Stiel continued, “but we also get skiers as young as 12 and as old as Painless Packard, a 59-year-old Palos Verdes dentist whose annual goal is just to finish.”

And how fast do the skiers go, Johnny? Consider the time of the fastest scheduled passenger boat to Catalina: 90 minutes round trip. Then ponder the race-record time of last year’s winner, 18-year-old Mason Thompson of Huntington Beach: 54 minutes, 56 seconds. Divide 62 miles by Thompson’s time and it’s easy to reckon that the fastest skiers are averaging well over 60 m.p.h.

What permits such speeds--up to 100 m.p.h., depending on chops and swells--without pulling a skier’s arms off is a new technique (“Australian style”) in which the handle end of the tow rope is wrapped around the lower back, sling-style. Even then, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get where you’re going:

The only navigational aid permitted is an old-fashioned compass, and what with the boat bucking and winging, precision is hard to come by. Several years back, for example, both Butch Peterson and Chuck Stearns, skiing side by side, missed Catalina by a whole bunch, plowed on across the vasty deep and finally fetched up 125 miles away on San Clemente Island, the one the Navy uses for aerial bombardment practice.

After eating raw clams and abalone for 14 hours, and wondering when the Navy would start opening up, the skiers set fire to the island, attracting the attention of the Coast Guard. They’re still trying to explain. . . .

Assuming that most of Sunday’s skiers stay on the right track, best vantage point for the start of the race (free, of course) is from Pier J, south of the Queen Mary. (Boats leave from an imaginary line between oil islands Grissom and White and plow past Pier J to the breakwater opening.)

Best place to watch the finish--about 10 to 11 a.m.--is on the L.A. River shore in front of the Viscount Hotel (just north of the Mary), which will set up concession stands for the hungry and thirsty.

Information: (213) 430-9152.