A Fast Bikini Under a Wet Suit

In the way-out world of speed water skiing there are good trips and bad trips. The pair opposite has known both. A fortnight ago, behind a drag boat called "Panic Mouse," a mechanical engineer named Chuck Stearns stood up on a single ash plank and skied faster over water than any man before. Stearns, 29, performed this fascinating and dangerous feat before 7,000 water-ski nuts in Long Beach, Calif. He broke his own 1966 record with a mark of 122.11 mph—and almost broke his gourd when he took a monumental tumble in "Panic Mouse's" wake. Later, quite another kind of mouse—honey-blonde Sally Younger, 15—rode her ski to a women's record of 92.68 mph. Afterward she exchanged smiles with Stearns, then stripped off her wet suit and giggled, "Now I've got the fastest bikini in the world."

TWO PHOTOS

SHEEDY & LONG

Helmeted and wet-suited against injury, daredevil Stearns rides his single ski at world-record speed on Coast course.