Late this past Friday it was looking like Easter Sunday might be a possible sailing day at Moosehead. Indeed, it was the only day before a major snow storm coming on Wednesday. But who, we thought, wants to take a long shot on short notice on Easter?

Guillaume Bourdin and his girlfriend Maisie, that’s who. Since moving from Freeskates to DN’s he and his buddy Nils have been super gung-ho. Today was the icing on the cake of a great first season for The French Guys.

Here’s his report:

“The iceboat season almost made it to April. The ice on Moosehead this morning was rough but sailable. Mostly hard with some places with a 1/4in thin layer of ice on top of a thin layer of air, and below the stronger ice sheet, so the runners were going through 1in here and there but the good wind was getting us going no matter what. The sun was out, with 31°F and NW 12 knots wind at 9am. We setup at Kelly’s landing and got spotted right away by your spy. We sailed two in the same boat and scouted thoroughly the cove first. We played it safe because we were the only ones on the ice all day, we didn’t go over the pressure ridge near the islands (the closest to Kelly’s landing we crossed together last time). We prefered to make sure there was no hidden hazards in the cove and stayed there even if it was very gusty. We found two drain holes 3 feet wide that froze again over night. The ice was 14 to 16 inches right around the holes edges so the plate is still quite strong, I just don’t know if it’s strong everywhere. We marked the holes with branches and sailed around two improvised marks. By 12-1pm the surface was getting soft with 39°F and the decreasing wind made sailing two in one boat challenging. We had a late lunch at Kelly’s to finish this wonderful Easter day and headed back to Orono.
There might be another spring sail after the snow and the warm temperatures, but it’s becoming more and more unlikely. I will keep an eye on these webcam and satellite data.”