We have moved the meeting from Lloyd’s house to Damariscotta Lake Farm, same place as last year. Same date: Sunday, April 10. Mid-morning chit-chat, meeting at 11:00, pot luck lunch to follow.
And just to keep hope alive, Ramblin Roger is checking Lake Memphramagog at Newport tomorrow. You just can’t keep a rambin man down! We’ll let you know what he finds there. All he found in Maine was snow.
The morning temperature at the lake was 37. Here at the coast it was grey and drizzling. How does one get motivated to go iceboating on a day like this? But Jory was waiting in the dooryard ready to go and with nothing better to do than go chase some ice.
We finally turned the wipers off a few miles from the lake, convinced we’d find a giant slush pit. Dave Godine was already there, walking on the ice, and the first thing we noticed was that his feet were firmly on top of the surface, not down in it. Dave had brought some planks, so we spanned the moat and went for a walk, drilling holes as we went. The surface was excellent, scoured of slush and down to the black ice. We found 9″ most everywhere, so dashed back to set up. The breeze was coming right down the lake at about ten mph.
In the early morning funk, my shrouds had been left at home. Not sailing on this beautiful plate on a warm spring day was too much to contemplate, so the mother of invention took over. The trailer’s safety chain hook fit into the t-ball hound socket, a gang of rope made shrouds, and some lashing around the plank and nose brought it all together. I had to stop regularly for “tuning” as the stretch was incredible. But we got to windward just fine, and beat up to the north end. There are some cracks and drain holes scattered about, and the ice up north is rougher, but just off shore from the landing the ice was a 9.
We had a long and deep downwind run along the shore, searching for the pit area as there are no good landmarks. Although there were small areas of thin slush, the body of the late remained hard all day. Even after the sun came out. Amazing.
Looks like another weather nail-biter for the weekend. Rain and snow through Friday morning, then teens Friday night. Sunny and breezy Saturday. How many weeks now have we had this same pattern? Anything could happen. We’ll try to get some good news posted Friday as soon as we know. We could be on any of the northern lakes that still have thick ice.
It’s just east of Brownsville, proposed launch at Knight’s Landing, about halfway up on the west side. We are trying to rouse interest for tomorrow, and Saturday is looking very good.
Bob Lombardo reports:
“We went out on the ice at 1pm and got off at 3:30. The only soft spots were the white or remains of the white areas. Out in the very middle of the south end there is a very smooth area [acres large] but we checked it and it is a little thinner (8″)and it was not as hard as most other areas. That area was very flat and smooth and had water sitting on it from the rain. We expect that spot to get hard and safer over the weekends predicted cold temps at night. The most consistent ice was in the north end which we did not get to today, but yesterday it was almost down to its hard ice and then had a prickly surface. That is probably much smoother today. North end is quite big if you start at Knights landing on Brownville side and head north [look at map of lake]. You will need a plank there. There were no pressure ridges from Knights up to north end yesterday and a few down south. Best to go to Knights landing. You turn right off of 11 in Brownville at 4 corners and swing to the left after crossing bridge and look for turn to the lake. When you get to the end or T take right and look for the landing. You will have to park along side the road which should be easy [very little camp traffic]. Knights Landing will look like a closed down store, landing across street.
The south end is the widest and overall biggest and you could probably make it down into that with some scouting. We have not traveled down the very middle of the lake, we have cut across it in several places. Its a pretty big lake for a pair of skaters to scout. We love Schoodic.”
Any interest? I have a car in the shop and need a ride for myself and DN. 975-6980!
Sloppy weather for the rest of the week, recovering for the weekend.
From the looks of this picture, I’d say the lake should be called Schooooooodic. This is just the kind of stuff that freezes hard in marginal conditions. A combination of drainage and evaporation leaves very little work for the temperature to do.
Bob Lombardo offers these fine words of encouragement:
Here is what the lake looked like today. Had no phone or I would have called. Knights Landing on Brownville side is doable for boats. From the landing all the way to the north end was pressure ridge free, and anywhere from 8-10″ of hard ice textured and not, some really smooth, some hard textured wind bumps. We think it will survive yet another onslaught of weather. Today was way better than Saturday and we were out for over 3 hours traveled from south to north ends which gave us about 22-24mi and then some.
Anyone interested in a mid week romp? Just for the record, Lac Megantic was looking magestic upon drive by yesterday. Anyone know of a contact there? Will?
Lac St. Francois, Quebec. Deep slush Friday, mid twenties Friday night and hard ice Saturday until about noon. It became half hard, half slush for the rest of the day so when the boat was slammed by a gust in the slush it hit the hard stuff in a full slide. Great fun! Temps last night were at freezing, just. But by this morning the ice was black, hard and drain holes frozen. This never ceases to amaze but it happens all the time; don’t forget. The wind had settled a bit and shifted to right down the middle, so Denis and I swapped tacks up and gybes down in full spring sun.
This lake is gradually lowered over the winter to allow room for spring run-off. The ice has already formed by then so the plate settles onto the shores and shoals. We sailed up and over this rockpile a number of times, as well as taking high banked turns along the steeper parts of the shore. When pushing off from the pits at Denis’s place there was never any need to push, just glide down the hill where the apparent wind was waiting. Below, making an uphill landing on the fore shore.
There are two good lessons from this weekend. The classic one, of course, is that you never really know what the conditions will be, but you sure as heck won’t know, or get to sail, if you don’t leave home: don’t fear the drive!
The second one is Skunners. Denis has made a swell set. I was on conventional slush runners and after many miles of research, neither one seemed to offer an advantage on the 50/50 mix of yesterday’s surface. There is a 1/4″ of blade protruding below the ski, but we think 1/2″ might be just about right for general slush conditions. The running surface is HDPE plastic, which is very slippery when wet. The base of the old alpine skiis might be just as good, though.
But the other revelation is their benefit as a safety tool. They are 4′ long, and just the ticket for skimming over drain holes. We did a lot of drain hole dodging yesterday, and theorized about whether the skiis would actually plane on a short patch of water.
Denis unwittingly put theory to practice on this unseen hole with his LEEWARD runner. He heard the bag, and looked over just in time to see the splash settle. No word yet on just how big a hole one might be able to jump, but that’s best left for theoretical discussion. But the thought of sailing with skunners on dodgy ice will bring much peace of mind, without much performance downside.
This one just slips on the bull nose runner, and is secured with a keeper bolt at the rear of the runner. There are a great insurance policy for all serious cruisers and couldn’t be easier to make.
The cold nights will be hanging around for a while, so it could be that we’re not done yet. But the turn-out on Moosehead was underwhelming so perhaps the season has run it’s course. Dave Godine reports from Moosehead:
>> “I was the lone guy out there today, tooling around with the ice fisherman. 18″ consistent ice, near shore or out in the cove. The 9-10kt S. Westerly wind picked up by 11:00 to 15-18kts. by noon I was driving back off the ice. A mix of shell and clear patches about a 7 when I got there deteriorated to a 6 when I left.
Broke through shell ice by 11:30 where in the early am you could cruise right over it. Every once in a while you could find a spot that was frozen over from the night before but was probably a hole from intersecting cracks, fisherman pointed out a couple and I found two more. These would swallow up a runner easily and crimp the day. I left after that as the wind picked up much more than forecast, gusty, it was very fast and too the point where I was getting nervous about going that fast and still try to get a good look at what was ahead. With the wind I think one could have sailed all day, the ice in the cove stayed sailable.
I did notice if the snow machines cruised the ice during the day they could leave some tracks that freeze rough, but better than no sailing at all. What’s saving the ice is it’s below freezing at night and enough cloud cover and wind to hold the ice during the day. It could be good for a while.”
If it makes you feel any better Dave, we found some serious shell as well:
Backing out of this stuff is an excellent reason to heavily round the rear of the runner.
Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club 