Reprinted from New Hampshire Profiles 1953, By Julie Miller
THOSE SWIFT, DARTING "WATER BIRDS" you see skimming over the surface of Lake Winnipesaukee
this summer really aren't birds at all, but a new watercooled
variety of New Hampshire skier—enthusiastic devotees
of the latest and most exciting sport to hit the Granite
State. They are fast acquiring a widespread following,
too, because water-skiing is a spectator sport without
peer. The rhythmic sweeps of the speedboat, flinging white
spray across the broad blue waters of the lake; the sturdy
bronzed figures of the skiers speeding along behind it;
the bright splashes of color which are their bathing suits,
but—most of all—the grace and flamboyant style
of water-skiing: all these combine to produce an aquatic
ballet of incomparable beauty for the onlookers.
As for the setting, itself—our skiers will tell
you that Winnipesaukee's sparkling waters offer the finest
water-skiing anywhere in the country, right here in the
Lakes Region of New Hampshire.
Credit for the current surge of interest in water-skiing
around Lake Winnipesaukee rightly goes to the Weirs Ski
Club—now in its third season as a lively, up-and-coming
organization. It has about fifty active members, and with
the cooperation of the Weirs Beach Area Chamber of Commerce
and some of the interested businessmen in the Lakes Region,
it has become one of the best known water-ski clubs in
the United States. Excellent form in all the events which comprise tournament skiing—jumping, slalom and tricks—has
made the Weirs team outstanding in the opinion of tournament
skiers everywhere.
These youngsters—and some not so young—native
Weirs Beachers, summer residents from other parts of New
Hampshire and New England and beyond, are literally taught
from the ground up by two men who rate high as top-flight
ski instructors. Larry Brown is president and organizer
of the Weirs Ski Club; he learned the sport in France
when water-skiing was a new and exciting diversion on
the Riviera. He has worked tirelessly for years to realize
his dream—to bring the sport of water-skiing to
New Hampshire for our youngsters. Bill Trudgeon, one of
the best jumpers, thinks nothing of jumping on whatever
he finds beneath his skiis—snow, water, straw, or
crushed ice. Bill jumps in the Lake Placid tournament
in New York and at the Belknap Area tournament, within
a ski's length of Winnipesaukee, and is one of the club's
consistently, fine attractions in the July meets, a Class
A jumper.
Larry and Bill have taught more than a hundred skiers,
some of whom are now teaching others, themselves. Starting
them on the ground in take-off positions, they have explained,
coaxed, encouraged, and inspired each novice until he
or she has found freedom and flight on "the mahoganies,"
towed along behind power boats at speeds ranging from twenty
to thirty-five miles an hour.
Driver Must Be Skillful
Usually one man taught while the other drove the club
boat; it should be understood that half the sport of water-skiing
is wrapped up in that man behind the wheel in the boat. Skillful, intelligent, careful driving
is of first importance, and goes far toward making a good
skier. It takes two people to make a water-skier; the
better the driver, the better the skier. Ski Club drivers
are taught to be steady at the wheel, to take no chances,
and to use their heads. The boat can be a small outboard,
the record to square the shoulders of any neophyte team.
The club put on thirteen shows that summer and attracted
audiences of thousands to Weirs Bay, Alton Bay, and Meredith,
where they staged exhibitions both during the daylight
hours and at night. The team skimmed around the lake and
up and over the jump, carrying naming torches, a most
spectacular and beautiful sight, and a feat original to
the Weirs club. People flocked to thrill at the flying
"aqua-bats," parading their newly-learned formations
and tricks, skiing singly, in doubles and triples, doing
180-degree turns, back-swans and side-slides on the water.
Over the jump, they did "U" turns, backward
jumps, jumps on one ski, and over-and-under jumping with
two or even three skiers—two over, with the third skier crossing under—a
delicate feat of split-second timing which never fails
to evoke a gasp of surprise from the audience.
Encouraged by its impressive showing in the New Englands,
the club sent a team to the Nationals at Lake Placid.
There Bill Goodhue won the Veterans' Class in jumping,
for men over thirty-five, and was third in the Veterans'
Overall Championships. Jack Beattie and Dick Binette placed
high in Junior Boys' jumping, and Bill Trudgeon jumped
off a tie for third place with Dick Pope, Jr., in the
Senior Men's' Division. One of the club's girl skiers,
Colleen Gallant, was chosen Miss New Hampshire, and went
to the Atlantic City Beauty Pageant where she demonstrated
water-skiing in the talent division, by means of color
movies taken on Lake Winnipesaukee.
Not For Beginners
The slalom course for water-skiing is patterned
after the run of the same name in snow skiing, but there
the resemblance ends. Six large rubber balls, encased
in netting and anchored to the floor of the lake, are
set at zig-zag intervals, forty-five yards apart. End
gates, also rubber balls, are set up before and after
the course, so that the whole run is 315 yards. The boat
speeds down the center of the course at thirty-five miles
per hour; the skier must make his turns around each ball,
swinging from right to left and from left to right again,
until he has—with a dexterity that leaves an audience
breathless—slid at incredible speed around all six
balls. Out the gates and into a "turn circle"
and back again he wings down the course, and out again
for a finish, having circled twelve buoys. Fascinating and exciting to watch,
it seems an impossibility; and it is that same unbelievable
quality that makes water-skiing such a superb sport for
the spectators.
Last summer brought new skiers to the Weirs Ski Club,
more shows to the lake, and the second annual New England
Open Championships in August, this time to Lake Opechee
in Laconia—and how it rained! Here, again, Weirs
skiers really showed their stuff. Bill Goodhue jumped
and slalomed his way to another championship. Young Bob
Gaeckle won in the Boys' Division, and Donna Lucason was
runner-up in the Girls'. Skiers went through their routines
in raincoats and sweaters to keep warm, but the fans came
just the same and got soaking wet and cheered, and got
wetter and cheered some more. It wouldn't make sense for
a water-ski fan to mind getting wet, would it?
Winners at The Nationals
In mid-August, the team took off for Lake Minoqua,
Wisconsin, to the Nationals, cheered on by their spark-plug,
Club President Larry Brown, who worked tirelessly to raise
funds to help them get there and back again. They brought
home eight cups and medals. Bill Goodhue kept his title
as National Jumping Champion in the Veterans' Class; Donna
won second place in Junior Girls' Jumping, Warren Witherell
finished second in slalom after first tying the eventual
winner four times, and Jack Beattie came in third in Men's
Jumping. Jack, incidentally, had made an unofficial jump
of ninety-four feet at the Eastern meet at Lake George
early in August, and he and Dick Binette had also equalled
the then world's record of eighty-seven feet that day.
Altogether the Weirs Ski Club, on the basis of individual
placements, was the highest ranking team.
On the strength of this really remarkable performance,
an invitation was extended to the men's team to participate
in the Canadian Nationals and North American Championships
to be held from August 28th to 30th, at Toronto, in the
Canadian National Exposition. Would they go? They would
and did. Off to Canada went a men's team made up of Captain
Bill Trudgeon, Jack Beattie, Dick Binette, and Neil Mclntyre.
They continued their surprising record, sparked from home all the way by Larry and all the members of
the Club, who carried on a steady good-will and publicity
campaign for their team.
No other athletic team from this region has ever gone
so far, so fast! These skiers come from all walks of life—the
brown-skinned young man who may be filling your gas tank,
or the little girl "no bigger than a minute"
whose year-round home is in Quincy, Mass., the blond youth
from Governors Island, N. Y., who works at a service station,
or the modest youngster from New Jersey who never saw
a water-ski until he began summering in the Granite State.
You never know when you're talking to a champion at Weirs
Beach, nowadays!
More Champions Coining Up
It takes young ones "coming along" to keep any
good sports club thriving, so a Junior Water-Ski School
is already under way this summer on Lake Opechee in Laconia—a
calm body of water with very little boat traffic. A group
of sun tanned youngsters, all under fourteen, now works
out three afternoons a week. Dr. E. S. Morris is sponsoring
the class and generously lending his power-boat, with
Terry Miller instructing, Dick Robinson driving and Barbara
Davis "riding herd" on the novices while they
wait their turns at the skis.
This story of New Hampshire's first water-ski club doesn't
have an ending—only a beginning. The Weirs Ski Club
will be hosts again at the third annual New Englands this
year, on August 8th and 9th; they expect the biggest and
most enthusiastic audience yet. A team of top-flight skiers,
whose records will be based on competition at the New
Englands and the Easterns, will represent Weirs Beach—and
New Hampshire—at the National Championships, to
be held on August 21st, 22nd and 23rd in Long Beach, California.
This happy event, securely "pinned down" far
in advance, is owed to the team's acquisition of a sponsor—the
Cott Bottling Company of Manchester, soft drink manufacturers—who
will fly the skiers to California and back. Plans are
already under way at Weirs Beach to put in bids for the
Eastern Championships in 1954, the Nationals in 1955,
and the World's Water-Ski Championships in 1956.
A new and tremendously attractive summer sport has definitely
taken hold in the Granite State, producing a new set of
champions to bring credit and renown to New Hampshire
wherever water-sports fans get together. With the Weirs
Beach Club showing the way, water-skiing is bound to attract
fans and develop centers of summertime activity on the
hundreds of lakes and ponds scattered from Coos to the
sea.
