Boats

Six fishermen are losing up to $3,000 a week because their boats are trapped inside Santa Cruz harbor by a storm-whipped sandbar. The boats are unlikely to go to sea again until about the second week in January, when a dredging crew hopes to have the mouth of the harbor cleared. About 60,000 cubic yards of sand washed into the channel over the last 10 days, leaving an opening so shallow that none of the 1,000 boats that call the harbor home can get in or out.

Thirty-four pleasure boats carrying veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion and other Cuban exiles sailed close to Cuba on Sunday in a floating anti-Castro protest commemorating the anniversary of the island's independence. Cuban patrol boats were waiting, but there were no confrontations, a Coast Guard spokesman said. Boats ranging in size from 16-footers to oceangoing cruisers sailed from Key West across the Straits of Florida toward the Cuban coast 90 miles away.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners voted Monday to continue the forced removal of boats, including some used as homes for low-income families, from an old marina on the site of a new shipping terminal. The port has gone to court to force out about 25 boats remaining at Our Marina, Deputy City Atty. Thomas A. Vyse said. The marina once was used by more than 100 vessels, including old derelict boats that other marinas refused to accept.

Owners of boats smaller than 37 feet are exempt this year from an unpopular federal fee levied against all recreational boats, state authorities said. The recreational vessel fee was approved by federal legislators two years ago to help reduce the budget deficit. "There was such an uproar that the federal government voted to repeal the fee," a spokeswoman for the state Department of Boating and Waterways said. "There were a lot of people who rebelled and refused to pay at all."

Russia has seized four Japanese fishing boats in disputed waters off northern Japan, casting a cloud over a visit to Tokyo on Monday by Russian Prime Minister Sergei V. Kiriyenko. A spokesman for Japan's Maritime Safety Agency said the boats were seized Friday night off a four-island group known by Japan as the Northern Territories and by Russia as the southern Kurils.

China sold 36 "fishing boats" to Iran during a recent visit to Shanghai by an Iranian Cabinet minister, a Tehran newspaper said Wednesday.

When pedal boats return to the lake at MacArthur Park today after a 10-year absence, no one will be more pleased then an artist named Bernie Zimmerman. Zimmerman, 64, who moved from New York City to a loft across from MacArthur Park 16 years ago, has been lobbying city officials for two years to bring the boats back. Today, he will be on hand as 30 boats are put back in the lake during a two-day celebration complete with Caribbean and mariachi bands, magic shows and free boat rides.

A Buena Park man was among two Southern California suspects arrested when investigators cracked a sophisticated statewide boat theft ring, the state Department of Motor Vehicles said Wednesday. Jack A. O'Connor, 25, of Buena Park and Timothy M. Kyelberg, 22, of Long Beach were linked with the thefts of more than 12 boats in 1988, ranging in value from $10,000 to $130,000, DMV investigator Bill Hall said. The two suspects were arrested Friday by DMV investigators.

Three juveniles were arrested in an arson fire that damaged two boats Wednesday, authorities said. The boys--13, 14, and 15 years old--were seen leaving the fire at Pier 44 on 13441 Mindanao Way, said Sheriff's Lt. Robert Dillard. The boys were released to their parents pending charges of arson, he said. The fire, which occurred shortly before 2 p.m., caused about $23,000 in damage to a fishing boat and about $5,000 in damage to another boat, Dillard said.

County officials tell Marina del Rey boat owners to "Shape Up or Ship Out" (Westside, July 20). Considering L.A. County's unseaworthy financial condition, perhaps they should heed their own advice. AL HIX Hollywood