Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Where do we come from?….where are we going?….such meaty questions….but my biggie is: How can I get thru November?…..and it’s only November 10th….November is my nemesis….i don’t know exactly what that means, but it’s the right word….definitely a RPITA….(hint: A is a 3 letter word)

Keeping the iceboat set up in perpetuity out in the driveway helps the waiting move along….sometimes i even hoist a sail….and late Sunday afternoon, deep in gloom, i headed to Bill’s shop….i knew Sunday is a workday there…i wanted to check on the new boom he promised to help me finish, which would finally allow me to sheet my new Whizz sail to the very limit….and give an essential lift to my sagging moods…

….there was Bill in a paper jump suit which—a long time ago!—had been a spiffy Ebola protective outfit….but was now patched about with duct tape….he looked like kitchen help, low on the food chain….he was leaning in on a two-handled plastering gizmo… skimming epoxy on a tired 40 foot Atkins Ketch, which i call the incredible hulk….we immediately began chattering about the coming early freeze….turns out the gulf stream is being goosed by the polar vortex because of a frown from El Nino…and sometime next week, ice-people’s prayers are to be answered in spades…

“uhhh…Bill”….I queried…”you’ve got two skimbatts right?” I knew we were both thinking of all the ‘early ice extacies’ we’ve been thru….Toleman, Grassy, the Swamp….the very names are sacred…and of how much a skimbatt is the needed chariot….Bill stared fixedly at me, as he paused in the skimming….”Noooo, I absolutely do not! You dithered back and forth, and finally asked me to sell your skimbatt at the swap meet. So, forget skimbatting!”

we had been skimbatting last February on Sebago, which was still open water, but frozen inside Outer Island, north of Nason’s beach. Late in the day, I had blasted into an ice scab and now, 8 long months later, was still healing a bad knee….I now sighed…”aging”……is that how it’s spelled? …looks like ague-ing….is it physical?…or maybe just mental?….maybe it’s just thinking “old”? …maybe i should just keep on keeping on?

but i also keenly feel a mental part….some sort of tardy cost-benefit calculation….some of our past stupidities i haven’t even dared to share on this site, for fear of discouraging the sport. last fall, for example, i shared this, early Plymouth Pond adventure:

“so we strapped on skates, Bill assembled his Skimbat, and we started swinging our ice axes, as we made our way out over deeper water. Hooray! After weeks of piddling ice, something was solidly talking back to our swings! Soon we came to smoother ice, without orange peel, which measured noticeably less than the previous 4″: 2.5″! Bill abandoned the skimbat, as our worries increased, and I headed back to the pits for a forgotten pair of claws. This was not going to be bullet-proof ice!

Once we were back together again–Bill not having moved an inch in my absence– we espied two areas about 2′ in diameter, just faintly different from their surroundings, which turned out to be only 3/4″ thick! We made a note to mark them later, and–still gripped by ‘early ice extasy’– continued on the 2.5″ ice to the South. We soon found that the ice was far from monolithic: it was a potpurri of textures, overlapping plates, and brash ice sandwiches; which occasionally measured as little as 1.5″ thick. It was almost impossible, in this variety of surfaces, to spot the ice junctions which are so vital to see and check. (*) Then, a moment of total panic set in: It suddenly seemed like we were surrounded on all sides by dangerous, unknown, unpredictable ice. A high-stakes roulette game with nasty odds. We gingerly turned around and, inspecting the glassy black ice carefully, exactly followed our skate scratches back to the launch area, where we skated and skimbatted safely in the light air, keeping to the 2 acre patch of 4″ thick orange peel ice.”

……that report gives a happy ending to our folly of skating beyond the initial 4” ice….but…dear confessors…. IT’S NOT THE WHOLE STORY!….in truth, at the (*), we were skating South, parallel to each other, 50 feet apart when, simultaneously we broke through the ice, and sunk into the frigid juice. Luckily, thicker ice, not thick but thick enough, was right behind us, and with picks we clawed halfway up onto the ice, slowly swung our skates up and, with our picks, slid prone to the North and eventually stood up…Bill, without insulated clothing, headed for his car and its heater….I skated around on the thick ice, just to rub in the advantage of correct clothing, and then we changed clothes and drove home.

hmmm….i’ll be 74 next spring….there are many ice buddies far younger than I, who don’t even think about ice until the Christmas tree is at the dump. They let the young immortals jump around on the thin early-season ice, and then join us later on tested ice….could i stand being that wise?….could I stay on the edge of Plymouth in those glassy first days…and watch others head off across the ice?….could i live with the trouble Bill would certainly get into without my steadying influence?

as you can see, deep philosophy is happening…

If there is ice somewhere that no one sees, does it actually exist? Or is that something to do with a tree falling? Anyway we all understand that finding the ice is the secret to winter happiness. With that in mind, here are some guidelines for developing the skills needed to make the tough calls. They are from the Swedish ice hound Kerel Van Der Voort. Using these techniques he was able to organize a skating weekend for a small group on a series of lakes and rivers 600 miles north of Stockholm last month. Yes LAST month! They were there in the middle of October!Most of what he’s discussing has to do with skating, but they can certainly be applied to sailors as well.

Thanks to Karel for sharing these with us, and we wish you many miles of black ice.

The right timing of a long distance skating trip without much available local information takes a lot of planning and studying of weather models and maps of the area. It is very challenging and if done appropriately, an extremely rewarding learning experience. Strangely enough, it is kind of neglected. Practical matters that should be paid more attention to are for instance:

– how to interpret weather forecasts
– which forecasts tend to be most reliable
– when do you decide to go based on what data/assumptions
– how to know which bodies of water in chosen remote area will catch
– preparation and choosing itinerary
– where to find that extra centimeter of ice thickness
– building a network of local residents/hotels etc. in particular area
– list of webcams, which directories or weather sites have included them
– conversion of a lake, to which extent can webcam images be useful to determine
– how to find that glossy corner of ice for most spectacular reflection of sunlight
– ice safety margin: how thick must black ice be to safely cross a small size or medium lake
– how to establish/avoid possible weak spots or areas driving around a lake, escape route
– how to judge the amount of cracking and pitch of the sound of thin ice as a useful measure of how safe the ice is to skate on
– how to find snow free ice or ice with converted snow when the area you are in is unexpectedly struck by (light) snowfall. Finding snowfall borderline, submergence of ice by the weight of snow etc.
– frost covered ice surface: in what kind of conditions does it occur.

Considerations for an ‘after rain’ skate window, in other words existing ice with wet/refrozen snow converted surface, including:

– how much thaw/rain is needed to clear black ice from a certain amount of freshly fallen snow
– how to know if a slush surface is hard enough to be skated when observed from a webcam.
– rain/water on ice; how many extra days of skating when a relatively thick sheet of ice is covered with a layer of water in continuous thaw.
– heat flux: in what conditions will a converted snow ice surface refreeze in plus zero temp.
– ice in decay: red flags etc.

As we all know, ice timing takes total flexibility. My adventures may or may not help provide you with some tools for long distance ice scouting and ice trip planning.
Knowing ice in and out and a lot of experience will help perfecting the ice result and joy. Use your intuition, but think methodically about ice result.

Test your knowledge of the sailing rules with the interactive test from DN Europe. The test contains a pool of 16 questions with drawings. Three of the questions are randomly displayed and there are 2 answer options. Your results are immediately displayed after the test on a scoreboard. All questions and the terms used in the test are in accordance with the ones used in the original NIA Rules. Take the test here. Want to study the rules first? Read the nine racing rules of the National Iceboat Authority on page ten of the NIA Constitution here. See the NEIYA racing rules graphic here.

Thanks to Deb Whitehorse and www.iceboat.org for bringing this to our attention.