He lets it be known that he has a fast boat, good for, you know ... swimming. Or whatever. Somehow the discussion turns to bathing suits, and she reveals that she has a thong. But she only wears it on boats. Bingo! We have a winner!

His name is Mark Hall. He's a fast-talking, hard-driving, funny, lunatic-type who recently found something that really gets him going: fast boats. His 26-foot Baja has a rebuilt 454-cubic-inch Chevy engine that came with everything but mufflers. This is one of those boats that's long and almost cylindrical and vaguely reminiscent of that most male of objects ... the cigar. It probably has a stainless holding tank for the extra testosterone. The whole scene makes him laugh, even though he's now a part of it.

"It's all about thongs and horsepower," he said, smiling and leaning over his motor, adjusting the four-barrel carburetor. He's kidding. More or less.

In the trade these things are called sport boats. Their owners have a motto, or ought to: "Go Fast, Make Noise, Break Things, Pay More." From the beach, smashing through the chop on their way to Cape May for lunch, they sound like mating dinosaurs. People hate them. People love them. People notice them.

Hall is a banking loan officer. He is no doubt good at his job and he's probably a responsible adult. He was born and raised a sailor, having spent many summers on the Chesapeake. How is it that he winds up with something that sounds like thunder and goes like hell?

His friends claim there is a one-word answer: Women. Hall says this is unfair. He claims women are only part of the answer. They're a big part, he admits, but there are other things he plans to do with his boat .... occasionally. He likes the idea that his deep-vee hull will cruise comfortably at 30 knots in steep chop. This, for example, will let him reach the Chesapeake fairly quickly.

He also likes to work on the boat himself. He's a full-on motorhead. After he bought it used last winter, he tinkered the motor right out of it and into the back of his Suburban, and then he drove it to a race-engine guy who gave it more horsepower and - he hopes - more reliability. To Hall, this was a kid-in-a-candy-shop thing. You want speed? Step right up! All it takes is money.

"You go in there and it's like an a la cart thing," he said. "How much horsepower do you want and how much do you want to spend? There's so much cool stuff. You go in with Budget A and come out with Budget C."

He went conservative, which is surprising. But without anything more than careful tuning his motor tested out at 375 horsepower. It should push the boat to around 62 mph. He did add a $2,000 water-cooled aftermarket exhaust system with a removable muffler.

So come on, dude. Why did you get the boat? Seriously.

"I really got it for two reasons," he said. "A, for trips ... and B, to go to the Waterfront (restaurant in Somers Point, on the bay) and cruise chicks. A boat like this, it's a prospecting tool."

Say again?

"It's perceived as a babe magnet," he said. In fact, there's a chance it'll work even when he's nowhere near the boat. All he has to do is mention it. Like with the thong woman.

But there's more. A fast boat and a loud engine translate to a wider kind of power, the kind that gives a person some control over his environment, via sound. Harley riders learned this a long time ago. "You just start it up and people respond to it," he said. "Whether they like it or not, they respond."

While Hall isn't entirely comfortable with the ruckus he causes, there's a part of him that likes it. And he's not going to let mufflers take horsepower away from a motor he spent a lot of money on.

Listen to the "blub, blub, blub" of the big-block Chevy. Even at idle it's a threat. It says: "I could kick your ass." Men in particular respond to this. There's a little motorhead in most guys. The only difference with Hall is that he has the courage to act on it and, beyond that, to talk about it and even to make fun of his love for this stuff.

"I'm out of my mind," he said. "I've examined myself. I know that."

As much as he likes it, he appears embarrassed by some of the folks running in this crowd. Some seem to know more about money than boating. Sure, plenty of go-fast skippers know exactly what they're doing, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a fast machine that does its job well. But some of these folks, when they go out on the water, they're more about coolers and attitudes than brains.

"There is a proliferation of the gold chain crowd around these things," Hall said.

"I love selling these people these boats," said Jeff Starkman, president of RPM Boat Sales of Egg Harbor Twp. "I can't keep product in stock."

That's due in large part to the healthy stock market, he said. The average cost for a "real nice" new boat that'll do 70 mph or so is about $100,000. Maybe we'll soon be seeing boats named "Thank You, Intel," or "Way To Go, Yahoo!"

Starkman said low interest rates help too. Why pay cash, even if you have it, when you can finance at less than 9 percent, and - if the market doesn't implode - make 15 percent or more on the money you kept? Let's say you want a new boat that costs $100,000. Put down $15,000, get financing for $85,000 at 8.25 percent for 15 years and you'll pay about $825 a month. But that's just the beginning. Regular maintenance, along with winter and summer storage, can easily top $3,000 a year. Insurance costs roughly 2.5 percent of boat's value. For gas, figure $200 a weekend, more or less. Then there's breakage. "At any given time an outdrive can go, and that can cost $5000," said Starkman. "Or an engine can blow, and that can cost $10,000 or $20,000."

That's an expensive weekend, and it's not like you'd take that kind of reliability from, say, a Porsche. But boats do their work in a very harsh environment.

"When you buy these boats (breakage) is part of the deal," Starkman said. "When they're getting abused in 4 or 5-foot seas, the s*** just can't last."

On a recent weekend, a gorgeous 47-foot Fountain edged out of its lagoon in northern Ocean City. Behind the outdrives, a trail of smelly mud bubbled to the surface. At the wheel was Jim Glenn, an attorney from Millville. Aboard were his father George Glenn, an orthopedic surgeon from Millville who's been practicing 42 years, his wife Peaches, and two friends. Jim and his father work together and play together, and on this day they were ready to play hard. It was the boat's first time out for the year, and its three engines - 502-cubic-inch Mercruisers - were running great.

The Fountain 47 is a few steps up from Hall's boat, big steps. Inside there's standing headroom. Outside the boat is all attitude, a 47-foot nose cone, only 8 feet wide. Fountain 47s cost anywhere from $340,000 to $650,000, according to Hoover's Inc.; a company that profiles publicly held corporations.

Why a Fountain?

"It has all the luxury of a cabin cruiser and all the speed of a racer," said George Glenn. "So you have the best of two worlds in one."

Jim Glenn also owns a Ferrari. He likes going fast, and he probably doesn't mind being noticed. But he's not a boating rookie, and neither is his father. The Glenns raced sailboats for many years and they bareboat-charter big sailboats in places like Tahiti, the French West Indies and Australia. With the Fountain they might run down to Cape May - they can get there in about the same amount of time it takes to drive - and have lunch at The Lobster House. Or they'll anchor off a beach and go swimming. Sometimes they cruise into Atlantic City.

After clearing the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, Jim Glenn throttled up to about 68 mph and headed south, paralleling Ocean City's beaches. The ride was butter, considering that a freshening breeze was kicking up a south swell.

Gas consumption? Don't ask. It costs about $600 just to fill the tanks.

Then one of the gauges showed an engine running hot. Jim throttled back. An alarm buzzed, indicating an overheating problem, and the engine was shut down. It appeared mud was sucked into the engine's cooling system while the boat was digging trenches in the lagoon. Something was wrong with the center engine, too, some kind of disturbing vibration maybe caused by a propeller problem. Their day was over. On the way back, running slow, Jim Glenn called his mechanic. Later the boat would be pulled for diagnosis and treatment. "That's the pleasure of owning one of these boats," he said. "Something's always going wrong. You're just pushing everything to the limit."

So maybe Mark Hall and the Glenns aren't so different. They see the limits, they try to push them and sometimes they pay the price. Meanwhile others just sit on the beach and shake their heads.