SITTING DOWN TO SURF’S CHALLENGE : Merv Larson is a long-time advocate of the kayak-style wave ski. Its ease of handling fits a wide range of abilities.

The film jerks and blurs, befitting home movies of the early ‘80s, but it shows clearly what may be one of the largest waves ever ridden at California Street’s popular point break. The surfer is visible, though his presence is muted by distance and the immensity of the wave. The wave unfolds with loopy grace; masses of water move up its front and sweep over in a thundering cascade. The rider draws up tight and high and shoots past the end of the Ventura Pier.

A quarter-mile later, the wave spreads across the Pierpont Bay in an unbroken wall, shudders for an instant and then folds over. The surfer escapes by turning for shore. He bounces toward the beach in a jumble of white water, ending a ride that began off the mouth of the Ventura River nearly a mile up the coast, arguably the longest ride, documented or not, at California Street. One other oddity: Throughout the ride, the surfer is sitting.

Merv Larson of Ventura, the movie’s star, shrugs.

“Someone on a surfboard could have done it,” he says.

Though it would pain him to be described in such terms, the 54-year-old Larson is a legend, not so much for the huge waves he’s ridden, though that plays a role, but for the vehicle he uses to ride them.

For more than 30 years, Larson has built and ridden wave skis, a mating of surfboard and kayak that has a devoted, if infinitesimal, following in this country.

“As more and more people find out about wave skis, the sport is becoming more popular,” claims Roy Scafidi, president of the U.S. Wave Ski Assn. and owner of Island Wave Ski, a Cocoa Beach, Fla., company that manufactures wave skis.

Scafidi pauses. “I wouldn’t describe it as a boom, though. I have another job.”

Shelley Merrick, Camarillo resident and a wave ski rider of 27 years, is more succinct.

“A lot of people don’t know what it is,” Merrick says.

That may be the case, but it is also true that Ventura County is home to as rabid a group of wave-ski riders as you’ll find anywhere, with Larson serving as their reluctant patriarch. Precisely how many wave skiers ride county waves is hard to say. Larson reckons maybe 30. Other wave skiers put the number as high as 50.

Statistics for the United States are equally elusive. The U.S. Wave Ski Assn. has about 90 members on its mailing list. But, using sales as a gauge, Scafidi estimates that a substantial number of wave skiers haven’t been accounted for.

“There are probably 10,000 wave skis out there,” he says. “How many people are actually using them at the moment, though, is hard to say.”

But one thing is certain. Members of this surfing subculture are possessed of an enthusiasm one might find in someone who has just discovered Bill Gates’ PIN number.

“Because you are sitting, you’re only a few inches above the water and there’s this incredible sensation of speed,” gushes Merrick. “But there’s also a real flowing, calm grace. When you come down a big wave on a wave ski and you make the bottom turn and you plant your kayak paddle, it’s a phenomenal feeling.”

The Australians and South Africans are credited with inventing and popularizing the sport, its roots in those countries stretching back into the 1950s. The wave skis’ origins may go back substantially further than that. Scafidi says the Peruvians rode vessels similar to wave skis 2,000 years ago.

Though he didn’t invent the modern wave ski, Larson has affected the sport both as a designer and a rider.

“Merv has had a gigantic influence on the sport,” says Scafidi. “He modified the early designs and started surfing on really large waves.”

The sport remains immensely popular in Australia and South Africa, often adopted, says Larson, by older surfers who are looking for something new. But there may be other reasons the sport’s disciples are mostly in their 30s, 40s and 50s. The skis are expensive, ranging from $700 to $1,000--a tab beyond the reach of a 16-year-old slinging fries.

You also need to be big enough to defend yourself. An adept wave-ski rider can catch gobs of waves and, in increasingly crowded waters, surfers aren’t always hospitable. Over the years, Larson has had plenty of run-ins with surfers.

Larson is personally responsible for luring many of the county’s wave-ski riders to the sport. Larson introduced Merrick to wave skis in 1968. Roger Macura, a Camarillo podiatrist and wave-ski rider of 18 years, still remembers seeing Larson in a surfing movie in 1969, watching him work magic on aquamarine mountains at Rincon Point.

“There were 10- to 12-foot waves, and he and his buddies were doing helicopter spins across these big walls of water and just darting around everybody on surfboards,” recalls Macura. “I knew that was for me.”

From Ojai to Camarillo, from Oxnard Shores to Silver Strand, they all know Merv.

Larson is not impressed.

“I’ve been doing it a long time,” he says.

Larson is standing at the edge of the old Pacific Coast Highway. Across the road, the Pacific Ocean spreads out green and flat. At long intervals, the ocean’s surface wrinkles briefly and small waves spill over in a downy soft rush.

This is Faria Beach, a surf break dubbed Mondo’s by local surfers (after a long-gone fast-food joint that once graced the spot). It’s an easy wave, a favorite spot for wave-ski riders and kayakers. This is not Larson’s top choice in waves, but today it has two advantages. There’s no one else out. And everywhere else, the ocean is flat.

Larson watches a wave teeter indecisively and crumble.

“It’s not roaring, that’s for sure,” he says.

Larson, who has the day off from his job as a harbor patrol crewman for the Ventura Port District, pulls his wave ski from the back of his Ford pickup. Although he’s built dozens of wave skis for surfers here in the county and around the globe, he only owns one.

Larson slips into his wet suit. He reaches back into the truck and pulls out a paddle and a gold kayak helmet. Big surf or small, Larson wears the helmet every time he goes out. He’s got ear problems, and the helmet helps keep his ears dry. Plus, there’s always a chance of hitting your head on the rocks.

Larson settles the helmet on his head, admits he isn’t an overly impressive sight.

“I pretty much look like a dunce,” he says.

Out in the water, any vestige of goofiness promptly evaporates. Larson powers into his first wave with two short strokes. Halfway down the face, he spins the ski around backward, holds that thought for a few seconds, casually spins forward again, then carves a graceful, sinuous streak across the wave until there’s no wave left. The performance is effortless and a joy to watch.

Because wave skis are light (made of foam and fiberglass, weighing as little as 12 pounds) and fairly short (from 6 to 13 feet long), they are highly maneuverable. Experienced riders can do almost anything, including fly: Rocketing up the face of the wave, riders can launch themselves into the air and then, with a deft snap of the hips, bring themselves back down onto the wave.

Larson weighs more than 200 pounds, so he limits his own air time--”Coming down is hard on my back”--but that’s about the only maneuver he won’t do. He can ride backward, spin the board in circles across the wave face, stick himself into the tube and even do an Eskimo roll in the wave lip, a gutsy maneuver where he slides up the wave face and down the wave’s cascading lip, rolling the wave ski in mid-plummet so that it lands upright at the bottom of the wave. Given sufficiently powerful surf, making a mistake on this one is akin to leaning flush into a George Foreman left.

Many of these tricks, performed by wave ski-riders around the world, are possible thanks to a simple innovation concocted by Larson. Larson was not the first person to build a wave ski, but he was the first to put a seat belt on the thing. That enables riders to throw their weight around, and move the ski, without pitching themselves off. Belted in, rotating hips and upper body, an adept wave ski rider can swing, slide and spin the ski in any direction, using the paddle to make necessary directional changes.

Not that a seat belt will save you every time. Larson has been blasted right off his ski, the wave ripping the bolted belt right off the ski. Riding his wave ski on a big day at Rincon Point, Kevin Farrell, a deputy district attorney for the county, ate it on a big wave. He rolled upright and still found himself smothered, and unable to breath, in five feet of white water soup.

“Your instinct is to die rather than let your Surfski go, right?” says Farrell. “I broke the instinct.”

Farrell’s board was swept onto the rocks and smashed. Farrell, however, survives intact.

Far and away the wave ski’s biggest plus is its ability to catch waves. Planing across a wave, a wave ski can ride the smallest, crummiest surf. In big waves, the leverage and power of the paddle allows wave-ski riders to get out faster through the surf. The paddle also makes it easier to catch waves--while board surfers often have to windmill furiously to catch a big wave, a wave skier needs only a few quick strokes.

This ease of use affords a certain advantage for those who might be a tad past their prime.

“I can catch more waves, more often, with less training time,” says Ventura City Councilman Steve Bennett, an avid wave-ski rider who, at 44, doesn’t get in the water as much as he would like.

“With surfing you’ve really got to get in there and dig,” says Leslie Ogden, a wave skier of eight years and Bennett’s wife. “If you’re neither young nor fit, the wave ski is a great equalizer.”

“I’m old and fat and I can still get more waves than the younger guys,” says Larson.

These days the surf zone is a competitive place. Should they opt to, a wave-ski rider can easily hog all the best waves. Thus, there is not always, shall we say, a chubby bonhomie among surfers and wave-ski riders. This animosity is compounded by a growing number of plastic kayaks riding the waves at local breaks. Bigger and bulkier, these kayaks are far less maneuverable than wave skis, say wave-ski riders, and far more apt to run over the unfortunate surfer who can’t scramble out of the way.

“Most kayaks can’t be controlled very well in the surf,” Macura says. “Once you’ve been mowed down by something, you hate it and anything associated with it.”

Confrontations with surfers, say wave-ski riders, are fairly infrequent and remain limited to the exchange of colorful repartee. Many wave skiers duck potential problems by avoiding crowds altogether. Despite his epic ride at California Street, Larson rarely surfs that crowded break anymore. Macura ducks trouble by surfing at night, wearing a windsurfing helmet with a double-beam, homemade light affixed to the front.

This also helps explain why it’s difficult to get a comprehensive count of county wave skiers. Though they share a common bond, the wise wave-ski rider doesn’t pull up to the beach with a busload of his fellows.

“If you decide to go out with three of your buddies, you’re going to dominate so much that everybody’s going to be angry,” says Farrell. “I think wave skiers tend toward a lone-wolf syndrome just for self survival.”

We may soon be seeing more wave skis in the water, says U.S. Wave Ski Assn. President Scafidi. In April, Ocean Kayak Inc., the country’s No. 1 manufacturer of sit-on-top kayaks, debuted the Yak Board, a plastic kayak that’s short and maneuverable. Scafidi reckons consumers will buy the wave-riding yak for its price ($299 retail), and then start yearning for something else.

“Sure, people are going to get in this plastic boat and do a few fun maneuvers,” Scafidi says “But then one day they’re going to see this guy on a wave ski doing aerials and they’ll say, ‘Hey, why can’t I do that?’ ”