May 2003

Well, I had always heard about how rough Lake Mohave could become when the wind kicked up. Mohave was formed when Davis dam was built on the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada. The lake is essentially two wide sections of the Colorado River. These areas, called the bowls, are book ended on the south by Katherine's Landing and on the north, Cottonwood. This past May 2003, a group of hot boaters, organized  under the banner of the Las Vegas Hot Boat Association (www.lasvegashotboats.com) had a get together at the lake. I was riding shotgun with Donnie Henson and his 25' Eliminator Daytona. Also in our small group was Brad Davis in his 24' Vindicator. We towed into Laughlin, Nevada on a Friday morning, where we had rooms at one of the local casinos on the Colorado. By noon we were ready to hit the lake! (click on the thumbnails for a larger view)

Seeing as how Donnie's blown 509 relies on a steady diet of 110 octane av-gas, we decided to leave the tanks of the Daytona full for Saturday and hitch a ride on Brads boat. We decided to avoid the large bowl and towed an hour north to Cottonwood to explore the north end of the lake. At the ramp we hooked up with a couple and their two kids from San Diego. Jeff who's screen name on the hot boating message boards is "nashvillebound", had his Whipplecharged, HP500EFI equipped 24 Ultra ready to go!

Sure enough, by noon, the wind had started to come up and the water was getting rough. Luckily, once we got into the narrow part of the lake heading north, things smoothed out. We made it all the way to Willow Beach for a break. From there we decided to make a run the next 15 miles up to the base of the Hoover Dam. I had been across the Hoover dam several times in the past, but this was the first time I was at the base on the water. It was truly an ominous sight! Well, time to head back and spend the evening in Laughlin and the casino's! but we ran into some serious rough water for an inland lake. We were in 3-4 foot swells for the last couple of miles and took a serious beating on the way home.

Saturday dawned beautiful. We were head back to Cottonwood about 8 o'clock that morning to hook up with the rest of the group for the days event. 6 poker run stations were laid out and we spent the day gathering our cards. It was great to meet all of the folks from LVHB. We spent the day running hard and hanging out. I'd have to say that the most impressive boats there were the pair of STV's that were running with us that day. These boats were capable of easily running 100+ mph and in the chop!

The wind came up again that afternoon, making hooking up with all of the rest of the beautiful boats that had assembled for the day difficult. We made our way back to the ramp at Cottonwood. We gave the boat a good wipe down, and then parked the boat on the waters edge at the ramp. We sat there and enjoyed a great spring day until the rest of the group started filtering back in to the ramp. While we didn't exactly spend the day doing what we expected, the event definitely has a lot of potential for a fun weekend. Hopefully next year, we'll make it back to the gathering with a few more boats of our own!