Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Phil Lowe reports that Sebago looks good, 6-7 grade he thinks. Still tight at edges.

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Unless you count our honorary Mainer: Ramblin Roger, who scored both regattas. Doug Raymond checks in:

“Just back from the Easterns/NE’s. Two fabulous days of racing on Champlain. This photo shows the plate we sailed. If you look hard you can see the pressure ridge we crossed to the miles of smooth ice we sailed. The person to the left (no this is not photo shopped, I swear) is blessing the ice, at least that was my take on it. Shelburne can be odd. Those are the Adirondacks in NY on the horizon. I was the only Mainer unless you count Ramblin Roger. He did a great job scoring the New Englands. I think he wants to give racing a go. Several top Gold Fleet racers showed the rest of how it’s done. Think ice, Doug PS check the NE site for more photos.”

The NEIYA site has not posted photos or results yet, but we’re rooting for the home town boy! Call around next time Doug, and twist some arms. You might some company for the long ride.

Locally, it’s looking very good for Long Pond MDI on Wednesday. Check in if you’d like to go.

http://youtu.be/nknGNzWaRa

https://youtu.be/NV2nsiopohY

Denis sent these two clips from Saturday, and while we were bashing around on Damariscotta ( and the Lamb Gang getting bashed harder on Unity Pond), Bob Lombardo was silently gliding over this ice on Long Pond, Mt. Desert Island:

We made a couple of attempt at the narrows, but found only light shifty air there. The only boat of the entire fleet to get through was Bob McGowen with his new Cheapskate. He was able to sail downwind soft-water style, but had to walk back upwind. Bravo for the attempt, Bob. He says that he wished he discovered ice boating twenty years ago.

The rest of the considerable fleet chased the wind and each other all over the broads for most of the day. The most dedicated switched to slush runners in the afternoon, although the areas of true ice evolving around the snow ice remained hard. There is still sixteen inches of hard ice, observed through a fresh ice fisherman’s hole. He told me “she ain’t gone punky yet”. You heard it here!

Some elected not to switch to slushies, but were content to revel in the sociality of the day and bask in the high March sun. In this case not setting the brake is probably ok.

In addition to all these boats, there were a couple of DN’s out sailing, and Bob’s Cheapskate (probably promenading through the narrows at about this point). Everyone is excited about the prospects for next weekend and some sort of Spring Fling. We can’t hope to top the famous feed put on by Leigh Turner at Winny, but we’ll give it our best shot. Watch the weather, chat with your iceboating buddies about the possibilities, and stand by here for up-dates.

Thanks, as always, to the Lamptons for the fantastic access, and for opening up the “clubhouse”. Our enjoyment of this fabulous lake would be severely limited without their generosity. David even helps to lug gear up and down the ramp!

Lastly, as an ardent advocate of the Whizz, we can’t help but sharing this one: Whizzard, Whizz Kid, Wizzdom and Cheeze Whizz. We missed Whizzkey and Whizzper, Gee Whizz and Oz, Whizz-Bang too. Maybe next time. Thanks for all the great sails, Henry!

It’s taken all year, but the queen of the CIBC lakes has rewarded our patience with an epic day of sailing. If we scored cruising this would have been a day of gold. After scouting the broads and finding nothing worse than a few drain holes and some hard snow mounds we headed south. Tip-toeing into the narrows, all looked fine. Bunting, Denis and Frank from Quebec, and myself exploded out of the other end onto much better ice and tons of wind. It’s a broad reach for a couple of miles to Deep Cove and with no nasty hazzards we drove the boats like we’d stolen them.

Deep Cove is one of the prizes of Damariscotta, the other is the River; some call it the southwest arm which sounds not nearly as romantic or mysterious. We beat back to the pits for lunch as it began to snow and the entire visualscape went to shades of lovely grey. Bunting blew out his shoulder and went home, so the three of us went back for more. This time we entered the narrows fully wound up having scouted its weak spots and headed for the River. It is a tricky entry with the wind more north than west and it took a couple of tries. Once we were all in, though, it was sail deep and sail fast. Sometimes the gybes came so quick that you didn’t bother to gybe your head; it just hung out there on the lee side until you gybed again. There was a bit more shell ice down there, but nothing you can’t blow through.

Peter Forbes and Chris Connary showed up around noon and Peter had a couple of laps while Chris set up his Yankee for tomorrow. We have boats on the ice and will sail there tomorrow with whatever wind might be left over from today.

A curious thing happened with the slush this morning, which we should all keep in mind. First, as we all know, slush will harden with temps at freezing. It was 32 here last night. First thing in the morning one could bust through the frozen slush with your heel into a wet layer of slush (not water) below. It looked like a slush runner day. But a couple of hours later you could not break through, and we switched to plate runners. We stayed on plated until the end of the day when the temps reached 37.

Looking at the weather, Wednesday and Thursday look good. Rain and warmth early in the week healed by cold Tuesday night. Could be shaping up for a Spring Fling next weekend. In the Damariscotta Lake Inn can repair some busted pipes this week there will be rooms. Lunch there today, by the way, was excellent, with a nice view of the lake. All part of gold prize day.