After a hard day in the shop, they go outside and sit by the lake for a sundowner.
Thanks Denis and Frank for this shot, and thanks also to Jeff Kent for allowing the teeming masses into his shop while there was real work going on this past Saturday.
Treasurer Roberts received twenty dollars in the mail, presumably for a CIBC membership. But there was no return address and no contact info in the envelope. The post mark was from Maryland. We’d like to credit this person with membership, so if anyone knows who this could be, or if this is you, please contact us.
Don’t forget about the NEIYA Spring meeting/clinic at Jeff Kent’s Composite Solutions shop this coming Saturday at 1:00. We all need to take one last gulp of iceboat air as we go under for the off season!
Now that we’ve decided the season is over and the sweet soulful sound of a certain soprano fills our ears, we can get back to serious iceboat building. Whizz # 8, 9, 10 and 11 are coming along very nicely. Henry Bossett is building the sails, hardware by Steve Duhamel, and masts by Apache Boatworks.
Denis Guertin is building a pair in Quebec for himself and sailing buddy Frank. He says that since he’s building two at once he’s able to make twice as many mistakes! Just outside the window of his shop he can watch the ice on Lac St. Francois slowly recede from the shore, confident in the knowledge that when it returns in the fall he and Frank will be ready for it. These guys are not afraid to travel either, so we look forward to seeing them around New England next season. Do I hear rumors of a Whizz Regatta in the offing? Frank, we know for a fact, loves a good race: the more wind the better.
Carl Jelleme in Nantucket has done a fine job with his Whizz. Note the exceptionally graceful stern on his model. Carl says: ” I have had a ton of fun building it and it really is a pretty little vessel….what a great design for its size.” Now that the steering is in and all the other small details taken care of he’s ready for the deck.
Bill Bernhard in Adirondack NY did a wonderful job of hiding the fact that plywood is only eight feet long. We’re not permitted to simply varnish the butt joint on the deck so this solution works great. The pin striping at the sheer and wrap around cockpit upholstery complete the package. And the plank is just the way Dicky Saltonstall liked them: flat at the ends with all the bend in the center. This gives them that nice S shape when loaded up, presenting the runner nicely square to the ice.
We’ve updated the plans, adding some more information and correcting some errors that only the builders are able to find. It’s amazing: you go over each detail, convinced that it’s all good, and then a guy who’s actually doing the building calls up and asks a very simple question about why Tab A doesn’t slot into Slot B, or some such thing, and bingo: he’s right. There it is in blue and white. So now all you potential builders can rest assured that Tab A does indeed slot into Slot B and all is good with the project.
Ted and Carolyn Vaughn are off to Vermont to pick up an Arrow. They showed up a lot this past season and sailed whatever was offered. That’s just how you do it: show up and learn, and now a boat has dropped right into their laps. Maine, The Way Life Should Be!
And don’t forget the Spring meeting and pot luck at Lloyd’s on Saturday. All are welcome. 140 Porter St. Rockport, 04856. Showing up starts now.
8 am saturday….impossible to leave the bed’s cocoon….the shoulders, knees, elbows: each placed just so, to avoid pain…..how to make it down to the magic of toast and tea and Advil?….but the memories….how the body now smiles….luxuriates…Buchholz says there are four cornerstones to iceboating. WIND….how it powers and drives you thru yesterday’s dense bonded snow drifts which covered 10% of the lake…accellerating on the grey, braking on the white. ICE….the dozens of varieties: scollups, pinnicles, caverns, yet magically all so smooth and undangerous…. BUDDIES….our wonderful collection of nutcases, whom we enjoy, bear with, and love….and SCENERY….and here….here…. there is simply no word, no possible concept, to apply to yesterday.
Moosehead is 75K acres….Winniepasaukee 46K…..Sebago 30K….Moosehead is so vast, so mountain-bounded, and so dominated in its center by a dramatic brick-shaped mound, Mount Kineo….. that when you glimpse it driving from the South, you can’t believe your eyes….this is a fairy kingdom…. Yet driving 3 hours due north on April 17 seemed such a long shot. As we loaded the car Thursday afternoon, I warned the strong sun: Don’t kybosh our Ice!…..what hubris….the tilt of the earth was against me…ice was melting willy-nilly at breakneck speed…..local lakes were water…..Plymouth, and hour north was half-and-half, its central plate soon to come unmoored and ricochet to death against the shores. At 2 hours the ice looked solid but puddled at the edges…and at 3 hours, reaching Moosehead, we had ice bonded to the shores. Walking out, at the Greenville ramp, the snow drifts were daunting….my spirits fell….
But 10 miles further north at Rockwood, the drifts were fewer and shallower….we scouted a good launch plan, and then began searching for dinner…..two restaurants were closed, one rattled your dentures with “music”, and we settled down with thankful relief, to wrap sandwiches at a pizza joint….by now die-hard Curtis had joined our duo…..later a cozy motel….a sunny dawn….a great breakfast, eaten without hurry in the calm morning air….and then we swung by the Greenville ramp again and goggled at massive 4WD king-cab trucks, pulling glistening enclosed trailers, disgorging shiny new snowmobiles, shepharded by beautifully high-tech-clad humanoids…wow!…no kneeling in Good-Friday churches for this lot…….nor us, of course.
Soon Denis joined us after a 2 hour drive south from Quebec and we five helped each other set-up in the light SE wind….out on the ice at last, it was great sailing to windward in the 7 MPH airs, but tricky working downwind….the Bills switched to slush runners while the wind slowly built and by 10AM it was absolutely glorious on any sort of runner…the 1″ snow or slush, either hard in the morning or softened in the afternoon was backed by smooth solid ice…
We explored, we snacked, we match-raced at every chance….we hiked lingeringly before imaginary cameras, backed by the drama of Mt. Kineo….we gathered here and there, now and then, in the blazing sun, to compare notes…..everything was so new to me….never have I sailed such vastness….never sailed a surface which looked so dodgy, but was so smooth in reality…and by 3PM, with arthritis now shouting to some, we again worked as a team to wade boat parts thru the slush and pack our trailers 100 yards away….
will there be more?…..sated for now, we imagined this being a fabulous ending….but i’ll wager….i’ll just bet…that if we keep oogling Greenville’s weather….and see two cold mornings in a row in the next two weeks…..these laboratory rats might just pull lever “A” one more time…and hope those tasty food pellets slide down the chute…..
Dogs just need to be dogs. If there is a scent, it’s not possible for them to ignore it so they give chase. So it appears to be with iceboaters. We sniff ice and there’s just no way to sit still and ignore it. Even if there’s already been wonderful “end of season” sails with all the attendant drama of setting out planks, and wading through slush and self congratulations on how lucky we were to get this particular day. Just over the horizon is a tremendous plate of ice, the biggest in Maine, just waiting for a surface. Three to four feet of shore bonded ice on one of the most dramatically beautiful lakes in the east, with all due respect to Winnepesaukee and Champlain.
The web cam at Rockwood did not look encouraging mid week, nor did the wind forecast. But the temps suggested a firming up of the surface, and by noon Thursday the wind was called for 10-15 with gust to twenty. And that’s just what we got.
The Southeasterly blew right up the lake steady as a train all day. The surface was hard and smooth most of the day and we could cover the lake with abandon. We’d agree to sail to some distant point, island or remote cove and then just do it: miles and miles and miles. No pressure ridges, cracks or holes out in the main body. Some of the shallow points and narrow straights were open but out on the broads you could be sailing along, go below for a cup of coffee and come back up only to find more miles ahead.
Captains Gautin, Squibb, Bunting and Rindlaub. The surface looks like crap in the photo, as it did in the web cam, but the runners ran silent.
The launch called for carrying boats as the proper ramp was rotted out from a nearby stream but many hands made light work of it. The launch at Greenville was in much better shape but was in a deep lee.
A little house on a tiny island a long way from anywhere. The landscape designer needs a deep tip of the helmet.
There’s a half mile of ice between the mouth of this river and Mt. Kineo. The big question now is what to do about all that ice. Rain is forecast for tomorrow which will wet out the few snow drifts and help compact the slush. The slush itself is very thin, maybe a half inch, with fine hard ice just under. Do we keep an eye on it like the dog on a bone just because he’s programmed to? Do we listen to the fat lady and walk away? It will only take another couple of cold nights to provide a good surface. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t want to bury the bone of this season, but who wants to continue chewing on it? Right down to the very marrow? Que sera sera.
