Iceboaters don’t like to get wet, for obvious reasons. But when your favorite home ice has been no good all winter, and then there’s a quick window between the wind coming on and the rain starting and the whole lake is good to go then sailing hard and putting it away wet is what you gotta do. The Southerly filled in right on schedule and three boats headed upwind bound for the narrows. With a good breeze and miles of ice ahead that grade 3 ice didn’t seem so bad after all.
As always, the ice down south seemed just a tad less rough and we nearly made it to Deep Cove. Sadly, there was a pressure ridge that offered no quarter, so we bore off and ran for home. Downwind the narrows in a southerly is just about as good as it gets. Fast shallow gybes, searching to turn on the glassy ice alongshore.

That’s Milo coming down. He remembered loosing his phone last year in this very spot. It was found floating in its bag in the spring by a fisherman and he got it back. It’s also the place where he was initiated trial-by-fire to iceboating on a Lockley on ice worse than this.

There were some loggers working in the woods near the shore. They had felled a big pine onto the ice and it actually broke through a foot of ice when it landed. Would have been a bit of bad luck to have been sailing by there at just that time.

They were kind enough to mark the spot for us and others with a little pine nursery. That’s Ben Fuller in the background in his new Pocket Skeeter.

Back in the broads Karen and T were helping out the newbies. Sean was running laps in T’s boat getting paced by a Whizz, while back in the pits some old friends with an ice opti were getting tips on how to win the North Americans:

Don’t forget, it’s raining and these kids just kept at it, having a ball. Of course, they’re softwater sailors and it’s normal to get wet while sailing, right?

And it’s off to the races!

The rain will be good for the surface. Cold temps Monday night might give us something to smile about on Tuesday. Wring out your boat and stand by.