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The Clear Lake Gang

Author: Pierce Hoover
It's been 40 years since the gang first hit lakeport. a lot has changed, but not everything

Bad Credit Credit Creditres A brisk autumn wind blows the length of Clear Lake, whipping up white caps that sparkle in the early morning sunlight. Along the shore, the summer cottages sit empty, the boat docks stand vacant.

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Bad Consolidation Credit Debt Except for in the cove, where a half-dozen sleek speedboats tug at their mooring lines, and ski vests and wetsuits hang drying on the pilings. Onshore the smell of pancakes and coffee drifts from a log cabin, luring sleepers from nearby cottages and parked camper vans.

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Bad Company Credit Repair An outboard engine coughs once, then roars to life. A couple of the guys. Out for a pre-breakfast ski run.

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Bad Card Credit Credit The sight of two AARP-eligible men slalom skiing through cold, rough water at 50 mph draws scarcely a second glance from the few late-season residents still at the lake this October weekend. After all, it's just those guys from the cove - those guys who ski earlier, later, farther and faster than anyone.

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Bad Car Credit Loan Nothing new, they've been doing it since they were teenagers ... and that's been awhile.

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Bad Credit Loan Mortgage The first summer Eisenhower spent in the White House, Bob Maher, Jack McManus and Merritt Winchell spent on the shores of Clear Lake, California, perfecting their skills in the new sport of water skiing. The year was 1953, and the cove in front of the Winchell family's summer home was a gathering point for the young skiers.

Auto Bad Credit Loan "We set up a slalom course, built ourselves a jump ramp and even held our own tournaments," Bob recalls. "Back then, it was all square-back wooden skis, and a lot of us made them ourselves."

Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance When they weren't trying to out- slalom or out-jump each other, the threesome invented a new contest. With more than 100 miles of shoreline, Clear Lake offered not only protected coves for flat-water skiing, but also some long stretches of open - and often rough - water.

Bad Credit Refinance Skiing tandem, two boys would head out for the far end of the lake, taking their lumps in the rough water on the way. Thumbs up meant more speed. First guy to fall lost - or you could surrender by signaling for a speed reduction with a palm-down motion that became known as "patting the puppy."

Bad Credit Mortgage Second And it wasn't just a game of fastest, it was also a game of farthest. "A lot of times, we'd ski up to Lakeport for a soda," Bob recalls. "That's about 25 miles, which was a long way to ski in those days."

Bad Credit Loan Student AN INTRODUCTION TO LONGBOARDING

Bad Card Credit It is 1993, 40 years after the gang first hit Lakeport for a soda, and a lot has changed. Slalom enthusiasts now round the buoys on high-tech graphite and aluminum composite skis equipped with winged skegs and concave bottoms, jumpers soar to distances of 200 feet and beyond wearing helmets and streamlined speeds suits, and the younger generation flips, rolls and slides through their summer vacations on $500 wakeboards.

Bad Credit Financing One thing hasn't changed, however. Twenty-five miles is still a long way to ski. And that is why I was on a plane bound for San Francisco, and for an introduction to a little-known style of long-distance water skiing known as "longboarding."

Bad Credit Home Loan Mortgage My journey began with a small magazine advertisement. "Ski 20 to 60 miles an hour, slalom the course, jump or cruise long distances," the ad read. When I called the 800 number for Maherajah Water Skis, Bob Maher, the man who designed the ski, answered. In the course of our conversation he invited me to come West and try one of his Maha Long Board skis for myself.

Bad Credit Loan People Bob, I had surmised, was the owner of Maherajah Water Skis, a brand of hand-laminated wooden skis I remembered from my youth. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Maherajah name was big in competitive water skiing. They were the first to feature concave bottoms, the top pros skied on them, and on our lake, they remained prized possessions long after composite technology and mass production took over the slalom ski market.

Bad Card Credit Credit People In the years since, Bob turned his laminating talents to the racing ski market, and a majority of the world's top competitors in the disciplines of circle, marathon and speed skiing compete on Maherajah products.

Bad Credit Guaranteed Loan The logos led me to them. In one corner of the Sausalito marina parking lot, a cluster of vans, trucks and boat trailers were festooned with "Maha Racing" and "Long Board Skier" bumper stickers, windshield banners and racing stickers. Nearby, three men wearing Maherajah T-shirts coiled ski lines.

Bad Credit Refinancing The shortest of the trio, a bespectacled man in his late 50s, approached and introduced himself as Bob Maher. Sausalito was an appropriate place to introduce me to longboarding, he told me, because it was on this same piece of waterfront in 1959 that he opened his first ski assembly shop in the loft of an old boathouse.

Bad Credit Equity Home Loan Also joining us on this day, he said, were two of his oldest ski buddies, Jack McManus and Merritt Winchell. Both were avid distance skiers, and they were soon giving me the gospel of longboarding.

Bad Credit Loan Payday "These skis look a lot like Bob's racing skis," Jack told me, "but they are designed to be a lot more forgiving in the turns. You can use them like regular slalom skis, but they're also fun in the rough stuff, which is where we whip a lot of the young hot shots."

Bad Credit Repair "Fun?" I thought. In three decades of skiing on Florida lakes, I'd never considered "rough stuff" to be fun. Water skiers - especially slalom experts - typically seek the calmest water possible, and wind chop and boat wakes are factors to be endured, not enjoyed.

Bad Credit Home Loan Uk Then our ski boats showed up. Rather than family runabouts or tournament inboards, I was looking at a pair of race-ready, V-hulled speedsters, complete with competition numbering and modified engines capable of speeds in excess of 70 mph.

2nd Bad Credit Mortgage First up would be the "youngsters" - a trio of 30-something skiers consisting of Bob's daughter Mary, John Bohls and Bob Schmidt. I expected the drivers to make for the sheltered waters behind Angel Island, but instead, they headed south into the open water of San Francisco Bay, then west toward turbulent waters of the Golden Gate narrows.

Bad Credit Loan Unsecured In the lead boat, we braced as the hull went airborne, then crashed into the confused wave troughs created by the meeting of ocean swells and outgoing tidal waters. Amazingly, the skiers not only stayed on their feet, they actually seemed to be enjoying the head-high waves, much like expert snow skiers love a good mogul field. A run under the Golden Gate Bridge, out into the Pacific Ocean, then back along the San Francisco waterfront proved far more punishing to those of us in the boat than to the skiers.

Bad Consolidation Credit Loan Once we entered the comparatively calm waters of the southern bay - meaning 1-foot chop or less - the skiers called for more speed. The drivers responded by pushing the throttles to the stops, sending speedometers past the 60-mph mark.

Bad Credit Home Loan New Next, it was my turn. I got up on my first try, and was amazed at how easily the big wooden ski cut through chop that would have stopped a competition slalom ski cold. Then, just when I got comfortable and cocky, the boat rounded Treasure Island and found big water.

Bad Business Credit Loan Ten minutes later, my arms and legs gave out. It was as if I'd spent a half-hour on a Stairmaster while wearing wrist weights - which made it all the more impressive to watch Bob and his team of senior citizens at work.

Bad Credit Lender Mortgage A half-hour of rough-water skiing seemed like child's play to these veterans. By the time they finished their ski run, I was firmly hooked.

Bad Credit Home Loan Mobile TIME STANDS STILL

Bad Cash Credit Loan It is now October, and we are at Clear Lake, where Bob, Jack, Merritt, a half-dozen contemporaries, a dozen spouses, assorted relatives, neighbors and a score of children and grandchildren have gathered to celebrate two of the lake's long-standing traditions: skiing and pig roasting.

Bad Credit Loan Private Meribell Lodge is filled with the smells of fresh herbs and simmering stew. Out back, Merritt and his son J.R. ready the barbecue pit for the 10-hour slow-cooking ritual.

Bad Card Credit Debt Jack drives up in a vintage 1968 El Camino, chrome wheels gleaming and souped-up engine growling and burbling. "The wife's got her Mercedes," he explains. "This is my baby. There are a lot of us old hot rodders still around."

Bad Business Credit Loan Small Jack has just returned from his 40-year high school reunion. "Kind of boring," he says. "Some of those people got really old and boring."

Bad Bankruptcy Car Credit Loan Out on the porch, the conversation is dominated by tales of last weekend's Bay Race. Seems conditions were rough even by San Francisco standards. A lot of boats couldn't run in the punishing chop, and those that did took white water over the bow and left drivers and observers black-and-blue from the pounding.

Bad Credit Instant Loan Today's wind chop is small potatoes by comparison. Barely enough to get the legs working during a game of "who's fastest." First up is a match-up between Bob, who's diminutive frame belies a wiry toughness, and Jack, who retains the barrel-chested musculature of a lifeguard or a firefighter - the latter of which is, in fact, his profession.

Bad Credit Equity Loan The tow lines come tight, the engines rev, and they are off. Down to the lower lake, through the rough water to Glenhaven, a circle back to the cove, then they do it all over again. Running alongside in a borrowed speedboat, my eyes water and my hands grow numb from the cold wind. The chop gets bigger, I throttle back, my boat no match for the racing craft pulling Bob and Jack.

Bad Credit Georgia Home Loan As they disappear into the haze of the upper lake, I see Jack give the "up" signal, asking for more speed. And then they are gone, these two men soon to celebrate their 60th birthdays. Skiing to Lakeport for a soda, with no seeming regard for the cold, the wind, the white caps or the march of time.

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