Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

There was no doubt from the first moment we drove on to the ice that it was to be a storm sail day. The snow was streaming into the pits in lovely contrails. Ice was showing through. Once past the quarter mile of bumpy ice from the pits the rest of the lake opened up to lovely plate punctuated by small drifts that built as the day went on. More black ice, bigger drifts: a fair trade off as dodging the drifts became pat of the fun, or if you had a buddy sailing close by you’d hit the drifts just to give him the splendor.

The pressure ridge 2/3’s up the west side was marked with a crossing, as was the one at the top of Hoyt. From there down is was pedal to the metal in a massive downwind flyer. The Bunting ridge, as it’s now known, was in position, but allowed a crossing at the east end, as usual.

Hard to count the number of boats on the ice today, but surely about twenty if you include the larch of Lockleys that showed up late in the day. They were the last ones in: bravo!

Some boats are still on the ice. Now that we’re all warmed up to big winds we’ll be set to tackle tomorrow’s bigger gusts. We’ll set some marks in the middle of the west side so those who want can arrange some scratch racing. Monday looks a bit calmer and much warmer. We’ll have earned it.

Reports late this afternoon from skaters, blissfuly gliding through a half inch of dry powder, indicate that we’re primed for a good stretch of sailing with the next two days bringing big wind.

Ryan Haskell found similar conditions at Unity Pond, above.

Lee and Karin skated the big pond yesterday and had this good news to share:

“Great Pond ice is thick and safe for skating and iceboating. We didn’t see any sketchy ice besides pressure ridges on a long skating tour today. We went from the boat ramp out between Hoyt and Long Point. There is some refrozen snow ice and old frozen snow drifts in this section. There was an active pressure ridge between Hoyt and Long Point but we crossed it on skates today. We toured down the lake and around Oak Island. There is a significant pressure ridge from Oak running west to the shore. We crossed at Oak Island. The southern bay was big grey smooth ice as far as you could see. We crossed another pressure ridge on the NW corner of Oak that ran to the NE probably all the way to shore.
There was significant old funky rough refrozen snow ice, unskateable north of Oak so we went back west and up to the south end of Hoyt. There is a pressure ridge then a huge plate of unbroken black ice from shore to shore up to Indian Island. The ice goes back to grey here and then around me the top of Hoyt. We skated down the West side of Hoyt. A big pressure ridge part way down goes from Hoyt across to main shore. In this area is a big plate of black ice. Heading south towards the boat ramp is more frozen crud and some old frozen drift ice. Close to Hoyt on that west side is a big plate of black ice to avoid the bad stuff.
There is a variety of ice and some big pressure ridges. There are also really big plates of great ice. All the black ice patches we saw, big and little, were at least 5″ thick. The ice is tight to shore. I think it would be well worth iceboating.”

Looking north to Indian Island, east side of Hoyt.

One can almost close their eyes while reading this and do the great tour in their virtual iceboat. Excellent report, Lee, Thanks so much.

Sadly, snow is threatening. It’s been flurrying on and off all day in Camden, and tomorrow doesn’t look much safer. Forecasts are mixed about the snow, but they are unified in promising wind and sun for the weekend. The one saving grace is the cold snow and big winds Saturday. It might blow off. If you’re lucky you’ll be tearing away off the wind riding on a magic carpet of blowing snow, the ice below slowly revealing itself. We’ve been there before and it’s a fabulous sensation.

Here’s a rather conventional shot of the decent ice on Sabattus. There are various patterns and colors, but nothing too dramatic. Best viewed on a computer, rather than a phone.

That same ice, as seen from 1000′ feet up by Steve White:

We sailed over that very spot in silent, smooth wonder yesterday. Some small patches of shell broke the reverie, but this looks lunar! The black spot had 2″, might be three by now.

Note the single iceboat in the pits.

Thanks for the flyover Steve; next time land and say hello!

We seem to have a nice band if ice between the coastal melt zone and the upland snow belt. Sabattus, Androscoggin, Great Pond and maybe Pushaw. Great Pond now has 5.5″ of older grey ice and 4″ of newer black. There are 8-10″ at the launch.

Looking south from the west side. The narrows at Hoyt Island appear to be tight as viewed through binoculars.

Older ice in the foreground, 4″ black in the distance. There’s a pressure ridge developing a bit to the north, in the usual spot near Camp Curtis.

Meanwhile, Bob Lombardo put some miles under his skates at Pushaw and has this to offer:

“Skated 20miles on some serious junk headed to north end from Goulds. Lots of smooth patches coming back downwind [yes we had lots of wind here today] Pressure ridges posed a real challenge, about 4 major ones pretty much wide open and dangerous looking. Really bumpy sections and really smooth but ratio would be 80% bumpy and 20% smooth. Rock hard ice though. If the ridges healed you could sail but the bumps suck!”

Some of the nicer stuff:

Thanks Bob, and sorry about that wind. It was meant to be delivered to Sabattus.

So where does that leave us? The wind is marginal the next few days so the plan now is to sail Great Pond on the weekend. Nice winds promised, and the ice will thicken in the cold nights. Hopefully the entire lake will be good to go. Hundred Mile Race anyone?