Jet-Ski: Fly-boys are at home on the water: Ian Ridley reports on the ski patrol and their speed machines at the European Jet Sport Championships

AS A moto-cross rider, Alan Pickard broke both his legs, wrists, ankles, collarbones and most of his teeth. Then he discovered a jet-ski and was hooked. 'It is moto-cross on water accept you don't break 'owt when you come off,' he says.

Pickard spent nine years as an average club rider but found that he took to the water like, well, a duck. The 35-year-old from Clowne, near Chesterfield, was European champion two years ago, only three years after taking it up.

He has now been overtaken, as was seen in the British round of the 10-nation European Championship at the Docklands Watersports Club in East London yesterday, being beaten into second place by his compatriot Kevin Hutchings, but did enough to reach the world finals in Arizona in October, along with Hutchings.

Pickard drives the original jet-ski, made by Kawasaki, but other manufacturers, led by Yamaha with the pounds 6,000 Waveblaster that Hutchings rides, have muscled in - Nissan sponsor it all just to keep up with the Japanese - and surpassed it. Pickard is hoping for Kawasaki money to soup up his second-hand pounds 1,500 machine.

Indeed, the fun-looking colourful contraptions - invented by one Clague Jacobson in the United States 20 years ago after he got fed up being towed on waterskis - have a generic name these days, reflected in the sport's newly formed governing body, the Personal Watercraft Association, which has 1,200 members and is still growing.

'It's a safe sport, although racing is a bit different and you are bound to get crashes. We've had one elbow injury this weekend,' the PWA vice-president, Peter Cranstone, said. The recent death of two Britons in the south of France as a result of a collision with a motorboat was due, he believes, to less control there than on British beaches about where craft can operate.

There are, he adds, some 7,000 machines in the country operating at beaches and lakes, where people can learn for about pounds 15 a half-hour. A cheap second-hand machine will cost about pounds 1,000, though a large estate car at least is needed to transport it.

Local authorities are now taking the sport seriously, says Cranstone: 'They thought it was going to be like skate-boarding but it's here to stay.' Police and the life-saving services are looking at its potential, he adds.

As for environmental concerns, all racing is on unleaded petrol, says Cranstone, and noise level is restricted to 86 decibels. Top speeds of the machines between 550 and 785cc are just under 50mph.

Often the racing can resemble some speedway, where after a violent start, first to the first bend usually wins. It can be exciting, though, as was shown yesterday by the Belgian, Nicolas Rius.

He had won 12 consecutive races on the tour before coming to the King George V Dock but fell off at the 'bunny hop' obstacle of tyres designed to spice up the course. Still he finished sixth of 13 with a virtuoso display.

Such efforts, coupled with the colour and the collisions, are perfect satellite television ingredients and Sky was duly there. Incidentally, these jet fly-boys like to be called pilots; well, it worked for Tom Cruise in Top Gun and there were quite a few Kelly McGillises around yesterday.

Britain enjoyed a good day in most of the eight classes with Jamie Harrowsmith and Shaun Mullinex also recording wins and Catherine O'Neill securing a second place in the women's races.

They are all, by Pickard's admission, likely to be outclassed in Arizona with American tuning of engines and professionalism still a few years ahead. 'But we'll get them soon,' he says. 'This sport is such a challenge, you never get top-side of it. We can keep making them go faster.'

(Photograph omitted)