Catalina Race Makes Them Tow the Line

How does it feel to fall off a water ski going 75 mph? Kay Van could tell you about her worst spill--if she could remember it.

“I was out cold,” the Pasadena skier says of her only serious accident, during a high-speed circle race last year. “My friends said it was great highlight film material. I did two flips, came down and went back up and did another flip.”

Van suffered a neck injury that put her out of action--and into physical therapy sessions--for several months.

How does it feel to crash at 85 mph?

Martie Wells remembers his worst mishap vividly. The ski rope nearly tore his left leg off.

“They called it an incomplete amputation,” the Colton ski racer painfully recalls of the 1992 incident, from which he has made a remarkable recovery. “The boat hit some [swells] from a nearby ferry boat and almost lost control. I skied over some slack rope and got all tangled up.”

Theirs is an obscure sport indeed, speed skiing, but one that draws competitors from all over the world and all walks of life. They race not for the money, because there isn’t any to speak of, but for their love of water skiing, their passion for speed.

And the wild world of speed skiing will start its biggest day in the sun early Sunday morning--barring fog, of course--with the 51st running of the Catalina Water Ski Race, an endurance contest billed as the world’s greatest water ski race.

Critics call this spectacle nothing more than a high-speed boat race. But those being dragged behind the boats, nonstop for 62 miles from the Queen Mary to Avalon and back on a bumpy ocean at speeds up to 90 mph, would like to see any of them strap on a ski and give it a try.

“It’s the most grueling hour you can put your body through,” says Wells, one of the world’s premier speed skiers. “Your legs go through a nuclear meltdown.”

Van and Wells are only two of about 100 expected to blast out of Long Beach Harbor on Sunday at 8 a.m., but they’re among those to watch for a couple of reasons.

Van, 32, is not among marathon ski racing’s elite but an up-and-comer faced with an obstacle other racers don’t have to deal with, diabetes.

Her pancreas no longer produces insulin so she has to take it artificially--and test herself constantly--to maintain an adequate sugar level. Keeping her energy level up is not easy, and an optimum energy level is paramount for the success of any athlete.

What Van also might be battling, to some extent, are stereotypes. She’s one of only a few African American speed skiers ever to compete.

“That’s really not something for me to worry about,” she says, but she nonetheless takes pride in being the first black female U.S. water-skiing champion, an accomplishment she attained in the novice division on the circle-racing circuit, featuring high-speed competitions on oval courses, in 1997.

Van, a computer network consultant who has been water skiing recreationally most of her life, developed a zest for speed after strapping on her first long plank--speed skis are about seven feet long, four inches wide and an inch thick--about five years ago in Discovery Bay in Northern California.

“I went about 40 and I was so excited and thrilled that I just wanted to keep going faster,” she says.

She is not expected to finish first overall among women on Sunday, but likes her chances in the senior division, ages 25-35.

“She skis hard,” says Eric Scovel, a paramedic and veteran race observer who once worked with Van but who this year will be on the boat pulling the highly regarded Mark Jackson. “I commend what she has accomplished so far, especially in light of her diabetes and in the way she’s not letting it get in the way of what she wants to do.”

In men’s competition, Wells, despite all he has been through, is one of the favorites in the prestigious open division. The captain of a U.S. team that will compete in the world championships next month in Spain, Wells won the Catalina race in 1990 and again in ’92.

“And about a month later [in a race at Lake Mead] I about had my leg torn off,” he says.

His comeback trail has been much bumpier than the ocean figures to be Sunday morning. He broke the leg in 1994 during a triathlon that was part of his training, and last year experienced a “smoldering infection” in the same leg, which is held together by a steel rod.

The boat manufacturer finished sixth in the Catalina race last year, after his driver had gotten lost in the fog.

“The driver found the island OK, but . . . he got off course coming back and ended up off Seal Beach,” Wells recalls. “So, given that, I was real pleased with my result. I’ve had second places that were more discouraging.”

The men’s record is 52 minutes 3 seconds in 1996 under ideal conditions, set by Italy’s Carlo Cassa. The women’s record is 59:08 the same year by the Southland’s Debbie Nordblad.

There have been deaths attributed to accidents in speed skiing but none in the 50 years of the Catalina event.

Says Wells, who once attained a speed of 114 mph: “If you’re not relaxed and confident, this sport can be very dangerous. Anyone can do it, but in order to win, you have to hang on and go for it. It’s all a matter of how far out on a limb you want to crawl.”

MORE WATER SKIING

The Catalina Water Ski Race, put on by the Long Beach Boat and Ski Club, is not the most spectator-friendly event, but the Queen Mary offers a good vantage point for the start and finish.

Festivities actually begin today with Adventure Day in Marine Stadium, which basically includes clinics and activities for handicapped children. They continue all day Saturday with interview sessions and trick-skiing demonstrations. Details: (909) 352-8658 or (562) 621-1671.

FISHING

* The albacore score: The on-again, off-again albacore bite is on again . . . and off again. The local bite is either fantastic--21 anglers on the Toronado out of Pierpoint Landing boated 147 longfins Tuesday--or slow. Rough seas offshore aren’t helping.

The bite has been more consistent for the San Diego overnight fleet, with anglers limiting out more often than not. Those with more time and money might want to consider a multiday trip farther south, where albacore and huge bluefin are biting.

* Local fishing: The big news offshore is the yellowtail bite at San Clemente Island. One of the top hauls was 210 yellowtail by 21 anglers Tuesday aboard the Thunderbird out of Davey’s Locker in Newport Beach. Wednesday the Freedom out of 22nd St. Landing in San Pedro had 100 yellowtail on its deck by 7 a.m. The fish are averaging 12-15 pounds and the bite has been consistent.

Closer to the mainland, sand bass have been striking live bait and lures at Horseshoe Kelp and Huntington Flats, where half-day and twilight trips are yielding limits of fish up to four pounds. Elsewhere locally, fishing has been unseasonably slow.

* Southern Baja: Fishing has been poor. Cool and off-color water on the Pacific side of the peninsula is being blamed but at mid-week that seemed to be changing.

Things get better up in the gulf at the East Cape. Buenavista Beach Hotel, for example, reported catching 14 blue marlin last Saturday and blues and stripers are in the area in fair numbers. Huge tuna--some weighing more than 100 pounds--are being targeted with fair success off Los Frailes and La Ribera. Striped marlin and dorado are also among the takers.

* Great Bear Lake: The remote fishery at the Arctic Circle in Canada’s Northwest Territories recently produced not one but two lake trout topping 60 pounds. Plummer’s Great Bear Lake Lodge reports that one was a 68-pounder, the other a 62 1/2-pounder. Both were released. The world-record lake trout, also caught at Great Bear Lake, is a 72-pounder landed in 1997. Details: (204) 774-5775 or on the Internet at https://www.plummerslodges.com.

WINDING UP

July rains washed away portions of many roads in Death Valley National Park, making a trip there more hellish than normal during the last several weeks. But park spokesman Terry Baldino reports that most roads have been reopened and that all 140 miles of paved roads are expected to be open today. Prospective tourists might want to call beforehand, however: (760) 786-2331.