Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Just got word that it’s a mess and not safe for iceboats by any stretch of the imagination.

Some conditions apply. Read the small print: we’re basing this call solely on the webcam indicating wet-out, deep freeze tomorrow and Friday night, and the Birches staff telling us the ice is still tight to the shore. It’s hard to say what sort of surface we’ll have, but whatever it is it’ll be hard, and I know we will have sailed on worse and lived to crow about it. It will be sunny Saturday, mid 20’s, and the wind forecast is 7-9mph ssw. Sunday is about the same but without so much sun. The Birches Webcam | Moosehead Lake lodging | Maine | lodging | lakeside cabins | Maine vacation

Long range ice forecast doesn’t look good for local ice. We might have lost Damariscotta, Chickawaukee has big holes. But the Moosehead area will stay below freezing for all of next week, so that plate will stick around. The Winnipesaukee web cam looks promising but we’ve heard no reports from there. snake_eyes.jpg 1,024×768 pixels

Bottom line: we’ll be there for the weekend, and hope you will too!

Another southerly gale is due to blow through in the next couple of days. We’re not sure if the local lakes will survive. Damariscotta was down to five inches and looking spring-like the past few days, although last night’s cold helped the ice harden up nicely for today’s sailing.

But Moosehead is looking good for Saturday, as is Lac St. Francois just over the border in Lambton, Quebec. A SW wind forecast for this lake, which runs NW-SE means a 26 mile beam reach up and back. A deep cold Friday night will cure whatever ills are caused by Thursday’s rain. The downside of all this for the New York and New Jersey sailors is that we won’t know for certain until Friday afternoon what the conditions will be. So the desperate should start driving Friday, get to The Birches and get what we get. We’ll try to have some on the ice reports Friday morning and extrapolate from there.

Just for little commiserative perspective, here’s a letter from 1943 when iceboating wasn’t always the black ice and sunshine we imagine it was. Thanks to Brian Reid for sharing this:

New Hamburgh N.Y. Jan 31/43

Dear Friend Mr. Ruge,

Well tomorrow is the first of Feb and in all the winters that I have ever ice boated, I think this is the worst. I have had the Edwa at Orange Lake since Dec 15th and have had only about three hours sailing so far, going on for two months.

The North Star is on the river here at my home and about all that you can see of her is her spar sticking out of a snow drift. I look at her in disgust, although I did get a day or so sailing on the river. Jan. the 21st I sailed almost to Beacon. the ice was beautiful and since then has not moved, although Sunday Jan 24th the river was just as nice with a breeze from the N.E. I foolishly went over to the Lake and when I got there it was dead calm, not a boat moved all day. That day Scaderfield sailed down to the NewBurgh Yacht Club. That day also Charlie Merritt tried out his experiment that is he attempted to but only went about five hundred feet when his leeward shear pole broke and it has been all over since.

I do not look for much more sailing on the river this winter, as the ice is covered with about 15 inches of snow and the water in the river is very dirty from the heavy rains we had the fore part of winter, and unless we get a rain soon to wet this snow through and freeze solid the under ice will be gone. I do expect to get a lot of sailing yet on Orange Lake, and will keep you posted as to same.

I wish I could sell all the Ice boats that I have as there is not much help around any more, with all the boys away to war. All a fellow wants is a little 125 ft front steerer weighing about 300 lb that he and a boy can put on and take off if there is a danger of a thaw and the ice breaker coming through, which you can’t do with heavy boats without help.

We have not been bothered with any ice breakers for a long time, about all they are doing is keeping it open as far as Iona Island and for a spell that kept them busy.

The ice above New Hamburgh is very heavy, piled up from the last time the breaker went through,4 and 5 feet high, so unless we get a very warm spell they will leave it alone.

Time is dragging with me this winter. No steamboats, no ice boating, most old friends gone to war or working in defense plants, can’t hear the radio, or movies, loaded up with ice boats can’t build anymore, so about all I can do is read about the war. If things don’t change, I guess I will have to join the domino gang in the fire house.

Well I have given you what little ice boat news there is and there is very little else. So I will close, hoping this finds you and yours in the best of health.

Mrs. Drake is not very good this winter, I am about the same.

Very truly,

Frank V. Drake

Monday’s Dammy sail was a hard act to follow, especially with the official forecast of the dreaded “light and variable winds” (at the Portland Jet Port) which usually translates to flat ass calm inland. We did indeed have the unusual North to Northeast that was predicted along with a cold Monday night that knitted up the broken ice around the launch ramp and overcast that kept the ice nice and hard all day. The wind was a bit shifty with occasional flat rest periods and then some pleasantly brisk interludes. The Easterly had a nice fetch across the lake for a change to make long reaching speed runs the length of the lake especially the glassy smooth ice along the Western shore where the freezing slush from a few days before wasn’t molded into washboard wrinkles.

The faithful skippers included Bill Bunting and his Nite duking it out with Evan Wilson, sailmaker son of Nat Wilson, in Lloyd’s old Northeaster Raven. Evan has done a very nice job of reshaping Raven’s old baggy sail, now a svelte beautifully setting and very fast sail. This was a very close match and they went down the center of the lake southward and back along the velvety speed aisle along the West shore lap after lap. The DN group of ice finder extraordinary Lee Spillar and friend and Ramblin Roger from Maryland hung together and likewis the Cheapskate trio of our “master class” skipper Fred Wardwell, Bob MacEwan, and Lloyd Roberts chased each other around the North end and the islands off to the right of the launch site.

Your scribe retired by 3 o’clock suspecting that this may be Dammy’s swan song. The die hards were probably still sailing at sunset. There is heavy warm rain forecast for Thursday that will likely shave another 2 inches off the top of the ice as the last one did thinning the ice to 5 inches from 7 inches. If Thursday brings it down to 3 inches in the thinner spots then sun induced thawing and refreezing will form pencil crystals and very fragile April ice. We are already seeing that in the ice pushed up on shore at the launch ramp the last couple of days. You stomp on a five inch thick block of white ice on the launch ramp and it turns into a pile of transparent ice pencils, scary. Lloyd

Karin, Lee, Roger and Ben in a reflective moment.

The rest of the gang in a nutritional moment.