Category Archives: 2006 Season
jory hears the fat lady’s bittersweet song…
Wind from the SSW 6 Knots. faintly tempting… Dense fog, dimly outlining the contours of Mullen’s Bog, Megunticook … walking thru 2 inches of slush and snow across the lake’s margin, passing 3 nasty drain holes which weren’t there yesterday. … Continue reading
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an iceboater goes skating:
To: iceboaters I’m a lousy iceskater, skating with lace-up hockey skates, collapsible hiking poles, a helmet, and occasionally even knee and elbow pads. yet as a lover of ice, I find that even with great ice, there are three times … Continue reading
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“snowbound slow-down”
skiing along the woodland trail with every tree abloom with snow by even the slightest wind untouched how this thrilled me year and year as sleepy orange morning sun day-glow paints the highest tops. this morning though, this wing-clipped bird … Continue reading
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saturday on great pond, Belgrade
Sometimes the wind and ice conditions have a quiet, almost subliminal message. sort of like a persistent knock on the door in the midst of a good dream. and the message is: it takes a long time to build an … Continue reading
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A Treasurer’s eye view Date: December 6, 2005 Plymouth pond glazed over! Good report from our wonderfully intentioned, but only approximate, Plymouth Convenience Store. they report that plymouth pond is glazed over now. perhaps one of our nearby spies can check it out, maybe thursday, as the ice hopefully grows, and report back. put the boat together in the front yard. it went together like a swiss watch. why not, i guess? as usual, the hardware is willing, but the software is gets weaker. now lets work on ‘warm and safe’ personal gear. time for a new helmet? is my head really worth it? maybe glove liners. new goggles. hmmm. the borrowed sail from dave wilkins looks fantastic: smooth as an airfoil should be. the old ricebag needed a gale to smooth it out. Hmmm. i’ll be sailing with wilkin’s number, wilkin’s sail… does that mean…yes, it must: dave’s go-fast skills will also convey! watch out my fellow tail-draggers from the back of the fleet! i won’t mention names. you know who you are. i’m moving up to the front of the back, or maybe the back of the middle! December 9, 2005 Friday’s report from Plymouth Pond, Maine when you want to teach a laboratory rat to push a lever, you can reinforce that behavior with a goodie, like food. The rat will eventually casually push the lever when it is hungry. However, it it gets food only randomly and rarely from lever pushing–intermittent reinforcement–, it will quite obsessively push the lever. this is because, as we all know, LABORATORY RATS ARE HOPELESS GAMBLERS. a near cousin to the laboratory rat is the aged iceboater. a blizzard was predicted. no strong wind was predicted. a difficult return drive was almost certain. and still, at precisely 9:45AM six iceboaters appeared as if by magic on the landing of Plymouth Pond. The day before had been perfect ice, perfect wind, but alas, no iceboats. Now we were geared up, keyed up, and obeying the ancient iceboat maxim: show up and roll the dice. The ice was already covered with 1/2 inch of snow with no wind to blow it off. more snow was falling, giving a total white-out to most of the pond. still, strangely, we enjoyed pushing the lever, even though the goodie was largely missing. Jory got to see his new sail in action. Lloyd completed the sale of his Gambit to John Eastman. John got a few slow first runs in his new boat. Dave Fortier got to try his right-out-of-the-shop new boat and to spar amazingly well in the light air with Harry. Doug Raymond got to practice skipping school without guilt. Fred Wardwell got to yakk it up, avoid the futility of setting up his boat, have a car breakdown, and still drive home. Fred Kircheis got to meet many of us for the first time and show off his lovely boat. the wind built slightly as the afternoon progressed, but alas, the snow deepened in equal measure, adding drag. We got the occasional moderate runs and stalls, all with very little sense of boat speed, as the visual white-out and auditory snow dampening deprived the senses. by 3, with snow still falling, all but the hard core, Dave and Harry, were in cars for the slow trip home. a few laboratory rats are talking about pushing the lever again tomorrow…sigh…i’ll probably be among them.. December 17, 2005 megunticook memories looking at Camden’s Megunticook Lake this morning, a scarey, creaky irish stew of ice conditions, i doubt somehow that the lake will repeat this year that amazing day we had last season: bitter cold, hatfuls of wind, when we chased each other up the turnpike channel and back south on the other side of the islands, each lap requiring its sequel. who could ever stop? ….and the lake had frozen in a unique way, so our that runners sang us a staccatto symphany of different sounds, as they encountered the scallops and tiny sculpted snow drifts on the black black ice.. …. and brian lamb and i said what the hell and we sailed off into oblivion , up the narrows, the wind moderating, to the north end of the lake, where bay after bay was frozen perfectly, and the skaters kept turning up, stoned, stoned on the beauty of ice, and we all pushed, in the dying afternoon light, into every deserted and secret cranny of that glorious place. the only word that comes to mind …….. is ‘holy’ today on megunticook December 23, 2005 I checked my logic before leaving the house this morning. here was a beautiful patch of ice 2.5 miles from my house, with good wind predicted. a secure place to set up the boat. a couple other iceboaters possibly coming. did i want to sail, or hang around sending christmas cards to people i haven’t seen in two decades? mmmm. tough decision I knew brenda would pout if i went. did the early gatherers pout when the early hunters went off to hunt? but i guess those early hunters were bringing back something essential, so the gatherers got with the program. but were the early hunters really hunting? out of sight of the caves, what were they really doing? hmmm. maybe hobbies.. out on the lake, the wind was very light and very flukey. I found the most wind over off Fernald’s neck. but only occasional reaches. but you can learn a lot sailing in light air. do tacks or jibes keep you going best? seemed like tacks. being quick on the sheet in flukey winds seemed important. no time to change boat direction, gotta do the sheet. can’t flatten the sail too much. you can see how light air separates the sheep from the goats…. but the real joy was seeing how well the runners were tuned up. the boat could glide forever. very hard to tell if the boat were moving or not, so smooth was the transition. its satisfying to keep at this sport.. making all the little changes… by 2 PM after a couple nice naps in my tax-free waterfront property with million dollar views, i decided to head for home and try 7 AM tomorrow. i wonder what the weather change will be…. December 24, 2005 twas the morn before christmas, and all cross the lake no leaf was a’stirring for an iceboater’s sake… popped hopefully out of bed at 6am. damn : two inches of damp snow and my tell-tale oak-leaves were limp. yet i obeyed the iceboaters motto: show up with all the gear and pray. all the gear of course includes: skates and the collapsible hiking poles which makes skating funner and safer for old farts x-c skiis in case the ice is kyboshed somehow… once on the ice, amid the sad iceboats–my runners still on of course–it was the thickest white-out i’ve ever seen. definitely compass or gps conditions. so i struck out northwest, where fernald’s neck must lie, using more reliable navigation than hansel’s breadcrumbs: i could always follow my own tracks back. and sure enough after 5 minutes of sensory deprivation, a grey smudge appeared at 100 yards. and yes, matilda, a real-live drain hole. looked like a meteor hit, with scraggley black water rays out thru wetted snow from the 1 inch center hole. must be that the weight of new snow forces water up thru a crack and then widens. hmmm. i always thought drain holes drained down. after skating a quiet rythmic mile up the western defile, i lay on my back in the fluff and watched the blue grey sky turn to baby blue with stationary little clouds. hmmm. no upper air movement. bet this is a windless day. who could not love this: when the eternal hope of wind and ice brings you to this unlikely zen-like situation. skating back to the landing, i worked out a new plan. step 1: undo stays, wrap around mast and put on car. step 2: unbolt runner plank and put iceboat on car with steering runner attached. step 3 put runner plank upside-down on car with runners attached . this would further consolidate my reputation for sleaze. no, instead, i just got into that quiet zen of decommissioning an iceboat. lovingly, oiling the shiny sharp runners–by golly there is overnight rust… a grateful ritual, too: those early hunters didn’t have this stuff. all loaded, i couldn’t bear to leave the ice, so i sat once again on dickie’s runner plank. 8:26, the brave sun, was just gilding everything with a blast of yellow-white. the iron-clad rituals of breakfast seeped inperceptibly into mind… sigh..i guess the pre- christmas fat lady is finally singing. Subject: Thursday Morning….snowfall… January 5, 2006 snow is gently falling in the morning calm, flakes big as dimes. the iceboater’s mind clicks to attention: how much accumulation? can i sail over it before it becomes wind-packed? when is the next thaw due? but there’s a wonderful contentment, because yesterday was that orgasmic iceboating day that, like good sex, leaves you mellow for days to come. it reminds me of Rumi’s lovely poem: On a Day when the wind is perfect A sail just needs to open And the world is full of beauty Today is such a day. Of course, Rumi was talking cosmic. not iceboating. probably talking about flowing along without resistance to the wind of life. but… it also fits yesterday: the sunny days had somehow polished Chickawalkie’s fairly good ice into really good ice. i don’t know how. and then the wind was, what i’ve now decided is, ideal wind: strong enough for occasional but not constant hikes. and strong enough to give the boat that squirrelly feeling when the last bit of sheet is sheeted and the mast takes its 3″ bend. the bow runner skitters, then regrips. and you’re mighty glad your runners are sharp. this is almost spin-out stuff. it was cloudy, bitter cold, and i initially wondered if the hobby were indeed overrated. was it worth it being out here? but then the magic gradually took hold. especially when we put out two marks and Lloyd challenged me to a regatta. loser of each race could choose between his super DN and my pretty-well-tuned-now regular DN. Miracle of miracle, I actually won the first two races. ‘course lots of dumb luck was involved, but you can’t imagine how mightily puffed up i became. here was the lowly apprentice , after 5 long years of looking at the master’s stern, rounding that lovely orange beacon with no one ahead. then, alas, he won the next two races, the second being crowned by that classic moment when you’re way ahead, 400 yards from the finish line, and your opponent, with better boat speed, appears out of nowhere and crosses ahead of you. what a royal crapshoot this sport is. anyway, fellow boaters, I needed to crow…and to hope, as we always hope, that another iceboating day will eventually appear. friday the 13th skate sail on chickawalkie January 13, 2006 very nice skate sailing about 2-4PM on Chickawalkie. good hard ice, with very occasional mushy patches, shallow puddles, and ice fishing holes. and perfect wind, about 6-8 knots. this pushed me as fast as i’d like to go skate sailing, with wobbly ankles and a large home- brew sail. but this time something clicked! i got away from the vertical sail idea. Instead i held it overhead horizontally, and pulled one side down for power. this position, so beautifully balanced, was like hitchhiking on the wing of a friendly bird. swooping back and forth the half mile reach across the lake in the southerly wind, each cycle required ‘just one more’, until finally i dismantled the sail for the last time: this is too much fun not to buy the right gear! jory PS i wonder if one could see those fishing holes under tonight’s full moon? white knuckling on chickie
The strong winds of these past days were predicted to die in the course of today, Tuesday, so I arrived with all the gear at 8AM, determined to get a good sail before it could pooch. Rain is predicted for … Continue reading
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