Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

This interesting report on the behavior of the Arctic air mass confirms what we are observing here:

Siberian air Will Blow to U.S. as Polar Vortex Breaks Down & Jet Stream Crosses North Pole

Plymouth Pond appears to be ready to flash on Sunday, building ice through the next two nights, with daily temps remaining below freezing. It will warm up just a bit later in the week, but there is no snow in sight. This could be fun. We’ll check in with our spy on Monday, and hopefully he’ll give the go-ahead to go check it out on Tuesday. The other good news is that the recent rains have probably brought water levels up, so there’s no need to bring grass runners…

This lovely 30’s vintage Palmer lives at the Pioneer Village Museum in Minden, Nebraska. I thought the stern is just so beautiful that I had to share it. There are a number of great building projects in New England just now (to be featured in a later post), but sadly, all of them are well past the stern building phase. To me, building another boat just to have the opportunity to create this would be so worth it!

Don Stearns is organizing the production of ice boat post cards for the CIBC membership. He’s asking that everyone select three of their best photos and e-mail them to him at stearnsdd@gwi.net.
He will then assemble them on a CD and send it to the selection committee at Lake Chickawaukee. They will select a few of the best ones and have post cards printed. These will be sent to all the members along with their next newsletter.
We don’t know yet how many each person will receive, but the idea is to get iceboat images out into the world while celebrating the anachronistic tranquility of the snail mail post card. Submission deadline this coming Friday, December 9 at midnight.

Size matters; please submit in medium resolution. If your photo is selected we’ll ask that you send it in for printing at full resolution.

Sailing the Driveway—November 25, 2016

Now that thanksgiving is laid away—our crowd of 20-somethings are presently sleeping it off!—it’s definitely open season on iceboating. I remember one season when we were on Tolman Pond in the midst of the holiday itself. Last season, being an El Nino year, gave us a late start, but an unusually snow-less beginning. We were able to sail in Canada in early December and, best of all, enjoy Moosehead Lake, which formed a centerpiece memory of that season.

I’m trying to bleed off the pre-season jitters by rigging “Ice and Easy” my new mini-skeeter every few days in the driveway. She has a free-standing mast which is quicker to rig. You slide together the two parts of the carbon fiber mast, slide it into the sail’s luff-sleeve and carefully slide the rig into the mast stump. When it’s blowing hard, this may prove a challenge! The sheet blocks are beautifully arranged so the sheeting is effortless. Since the middle of the boom is sheeted instead of the far end, there is no need for a block below the luff. Unfortunately, there is no storage space aboard for lunch and the rum bottle!

The boat has an easy cockpit to enter, its opening being wide and long, which should encourage this lazy-bones to leap out and get moving again when needed. So, dear buddies, double check that gear and stand by for the best season ever. I think we can get in one more before the Republicans heat us up.

20 F. this AM, 5/16 in. of ice in grass at lake edge with water underneath at 36 F. A short canoe ride out to deeper water found 40 F. at hockey stick depth, this is seasonally appropriate. In the fall “overturn” the water cools to 40 F. when it is at its heaviest and it sinks to the bottom displacing warmer or colder water to the surface. The colder surface water waits until it gets to 32 or colder which is why the lake does not freeze from the bottom up, awkward for sailors and skaters.

Tolman Pond on Rte 90 is our surrogate for Plymouth Pond, our often first sail on the first weekend of December, is partially skimmed over. This is promising but the weather forecast for next week is for temperate damp weather and this has been a warm fall so Plymouth may wait. Water levels in lakes and ponds are at 50 year historic lows. Tolman is pretty shallow, a few feet, so less water may cool faster. That first ice is hard and thin so sharpen the runners and find the dry suits.

First off I want to appoligize for all the posts without content. We have been experiencing some technical difficulties which I am working through with the people at WordPress. Oddly enough the NEIYA is experiencing the same issues so we have to get it solved for the good of all New England iceboating.
Thanks for your patience and see you on the ice soon.
John Stanton

Not that there’s any rush yet, but here’s a selection of useful web cams to bookmark for when the time comes to check these and the forecast compulsively, many times a day. Have a look at the great new image on Damariscotta, especially. The second link is activated each evening to give a time lapse clip of the entire day. Thanks again to Ryan Haskell for setting this up, and to David Lampton for providing hospitable access to the “clubhouse” and launch.

Damariscotta Lake: http://www.mile213.com/damar.jpg

Damariscotta Lake daily time lapse: http://www.mile213.com/damarday.mov

Lake Sebago, Jordan Bay: http://www.sebagocam.com/

Moosehead, The Birches:http://www.birches.com/webcam/

Moosehead, south end: http://www.mooseheadlake.us/

South Twin, Millinockett: http://www.5lakeslodge.com/webcam.asp

Sebec Lake: http://sebeclakeview.net/

Rattlesnake Island, Winnipesaukee, looking NE: snake_eyes.jpg 1,024×768 pixels