Watercraft

Private boats, canoes and other watercraft will be barred from Lake Casitas for up to a year as officials develop additional methods to prevent the man-made reservoir from becoming contaminated by an invasive mussel. Despite protests from anglers, the Casitas Municipal Water District's board of directors voted this week to approve the ban at the popular 2,700-acre lake. The recreation area will continue to permit rental of more than 75 kayaks, pontoons and aluminum boats. More than 150 boats permanently kept at the lake also are not affected by the ban. The lake, which is stocked with bass, trout and catfish, attracts 26,000 boaters annually.

Dive teams are scheduled to resume searching harbor waters this morning for the body of a fisherman who fell overboard Sunday and is presumed dead. The 50-year-old man was thrown from a small boat off Pier J about 11:30 a.m. when a companion operating the watercraft made a sudden turn, said a spokesman for the Long Beach Fire Department. Several agencies, including the Coast Guard, dispatched rescue boats to the area about 75 feet beyond the breakwater but did not find the man, who was not identified.

A proposal to protect marine life by banning tow-in surfers who zoom onto mountainous swells at the famous break Maverick's has the international surfing community wondering if California has seen the last of its mega-wave riding.

Tasmanian devils of the breakwater, or upstanding citizens of the surf? Either way, those zippy little speed demons with names like WaveRunner, Sea-Doo and Jet Ski are heading our way, as Memorial Day marks the start of the high season for personal watercraft use. "Just make sure to watch your speed," the manager at Marina Boat Rentals in Marina del Rey says before handing a visitor the keys to a two-person Yamaha WaveRunner.

With summer fast approaching, outdoor enthusiasts will soon launch thousands of boats and personal watercraft into rivers, lakes and the ocean, unleashing a huge pulse of smog-forming exhaust into California skies. Manufacturers post booming sales and produce even more permutations of vessels -- personal watercraft, kayaks, ski boats and pontoon party barges, to name a few.

It's fun to go fast on water. That's why recreational watercraft makers keep cranking the innovation throttle. And this has been a particularly good summer for kidney-slamming speed. The brainiacs at Sea-Doo just launched a wasp-colored party crasher that delivers what its ad men claim: a new way of seeing watercraft. Meanwhile the super-sizers at Zodiac have goosed their familiar inflatable line to Hummer-scaled grandiosity.

National Park Service officials in charge of the Lake Mead Recreational Area announced Wednesday that personal watercraft will continue to be allowed at the 1.5-million-acre park. The decision was prompted by a court order to ban the machines if park officials failed to devise a management plan and conduct environmental studies.

Re "Stolen Watercraft Lands Policeman in Hot Water," May 17: Let me see if I got this straight. Trent Harris, "longtime Newport police sergeant," steals a $4,000 watercraft from the Boy Scouts and hides it in his garage. He gets caught and instead of a felony conviction to haunt him the rest of his life, he gets it reduced to a misdemeanor and is let off with probation. Plus, at the ripe old age of 46, he gets a "disability pension," which means that Newport Beach will be paying him $40,000 or $50,000 each year from now until doomsday.

The sun was on the students' side. Blinding, blazing and brutal to the fair-skinned, the beams of sunlight helped propel the small boat 5 to 7 mph around Corona Lake in Riverside County. Standing along the shoreline, sweaty and thirsty, the nine students cheered for the skipper, a classmate who rode the solar-paneled boat through the calm water during a test run Wednesday.

Powerboats and personal watercraft will be allowed to return to a Carlsbad lagoon now that authorities appear to have eradicated a fast-spreading algae that endangered aquatic life. The City Council voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday to end the three-year ban on motorized craft in the Snug Harbor area of Agua Hedionda Lagoon, which had been infested with Caulerpa taxifolia.