Jet Skis

A former Folsom Prison guard was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of workers' compensation fraud after she was videotaped using Jet Skis and a water slide and doing back-flip dives, state officials said. Investigators with the state departments of Corrections and Insurance said June Ann Lucena, 41, of Placerville exaggerated injuries she received in a fall from a prison tower in April 1999. The claim cost the State Compensation Insurance Fund $170,309.

As Labor Day approaches, the traditional last weekend of summer, those safeguarding the waterways want to get the word out about personal watercraft safety. "Most people use them as a toy," said Mike Coash, aquatics manager at Castaic Lake State Recreation Center. "They are uninformed about the rules of the road and that can lead to a tragic accident." Though they account for only 17.

After an all-night search by his family, a 31-year-old man who got lost at sea while riding a jet ski was found dead Sunday morning, floating near Rincon Point. Wearing a safety vest and floating face down near the watercraft, the body of Salvador Murillo of Thousand Oaks was spotted by a Coast Guard helicopter about 12 miles north of where he was last seen Saturday, riding the waves with brothers and friends. Whether he drowned or died of exposure or some other cause was not yet known.

A controversial measure to ban Jet Skis and other two-stroke engine watercraft from lakes and reservoirs that supply drinking water cleared the Assembly Environmental Safety Committee on a 5-3 vote and now awaits action on the Assembly floor. To gain passage, Assemblywomen Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) amended her bill to exclude newer-model, lower-polluting, fuel-injected two-stroke engines.

New boats and personal watercraft--some of the dirtiest machines made today--will no longer spew large volumes of unburned fuel into California's air and water under stringent new pollution limits adopted Thursday. Manufacturers waged a vigorous fight against the new emission standards, predicting that consumers won't be able to afford new motorboats, and that California's boating and recreation industries could be decimated.

Pat Andress and his younger brother Ryan spent Thursday afternoon zipping around Ventura Harbor on jet skis until a Harbor Patrol officer stepped in. "I just wanted to remind you what the speed limit was in the harbor," Officer Casey Culp said as he pulled up alongside them, telling the brothers that they couldn't go faster than 5 mph inside the breakwater. "It's hard to tell where the restrictions are," 25-year-old Pat responded apologetically, acknowledging he didn't know the law.

The straits around the San Juan Islands are big enough for tall sailboats, big luxury cabin cruisers and high-speed cigarette boats. But not Jet Skis. San Juan County's stand against waterjet-powered personal watercraft came to a head July 9 when the state Supreme Court affirmed local authority to ban the machines from the county's vast waterways northwest of Seattle.

Jet Skis and other personal motorized watercraft have been outlawed in Grand Canyon National Park, the park's superintendent said. Personal watercraft have always been forbidden along nearly 240 miles of the Colorado River inside the park, but Friday's decision outlawed them in the last stretch closest to Lake Mead.

There's a point where we won't be pulling into the tube, where we're surfing just for survival. . . . When Jaws gets big it's the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. --Darrick Doerner, power surfer * When Jaws gets big, the earth shakes. When Jaws gets big, ominous shadows are cast over the reef and everything else . . . gets really small. When Jaws gets big, says veteran big-wave surfer Charlie Walker, "It can hold you down beyond what you're capable of surviving."

They're called "personal watercraft" by the industry, but that moniker strikes me as non-descriptive. Literally, it means somebody's own boat and could cover anything from a rubber raft to a world-class yacht. Most boaters like myself just call them "jet skis," but Jet Ski is a brand name and rival manufacturers object. Thus the bland name PWC. More accurately, they could be called water scooters. They do resemble a cross between a trail bike and a classic Vespa.