Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Bill Bunting sent in this report of today’s sailing:

Ramblin’ Roger the Ice Gypsy, with DN Gingerbreadman; Scott Woodman, with pocket skeeter Yellow Bird; Ben Fuller with the antique gaff-rigged sternsteerer Tipsey; and yours truly with Nite # 86, Red Herring, enjoyed sailing on Dammy today. The light south wind softened the snow ice crust just enough so that ones teeth did not rattle when hitting the reefs at speed, while the lanes of smooth, dark ice that ran through them provided magical, velvet acceleration. Sailing alongside Tipsey and Yellow Bird, I realized how fortunate we are to have such very different yet equally admirable creations in our fleet. At about 3.30, seemingly in a matter of minutes, the crust turned to slush, but all made it back to the farm under sail, including Roger, who had doubled the Narrows Passage. I was very pleased that he had when I realized that my battery was dead — Roger travels with all the necessities of life packed in his caravan, including a set of heavy duty jumper cables.

Bill Bunting

Myself, I went back to work this morning as the forecast had no wind, thus violating the prime maxim: show up and pray. The wind filled in nicely after lunch until I could take it no more, so hitched up the trailer and went to Megunticook to set up. The SE wind blew right up the Western Way, and filled the Broads perfectly. The ice is probably not as nice as Damariscotta, but it was the first time this season with a boat on Megunticook and well worth the effort.

It had been almost two months since I had set foot on ice when Lloyd called, wondering if I were still alive, and reporting possible good ice on Damariscotta. The reasons for my absence were two-fold. For one thing, an illness in my family had brought me into a pain so intense that iceboating seemed a superfluous sidetrack. For another, we iceboaters were caught in the dilemma of either driving great distances for good ice, or banging around on total SXXX.

But the day’s schedule could be tweaked, so I tracked down the gear–now an easier job with a trailer already loaded with boat stuff–and drove with that erstwhile heart flutter of expectation, in the 20 degree bright morning sun to the lake.

I was prepared to sniff the ice and head home, given the evangelical inflation of ice conditions Lloyd is so prone to; but the the ice was far better than I expected. To my fresh, hungry eyes it was just fantastic. And a great crowd turned up: Lloyd, Bill Bunting, Scotty, Dave Fortier, Curtis, Chris Conory, our dynamic duo from Canada, Dave Fowle, Fred, a rambling iceboater from Maryland, and two or three others. I swung off the emergency brake, battled the light airs near the launch, and soon was hurtling across ice both smooth and occasionally scabbed. It was ice that, fueled as we were by ice deprivation, immediately lured us into going faster than was wise.

I soon teamed up with Curtis in Indigo, and we blasted in tandem toward the South. I was determined not to pass south of the narrows, until we had recruited a quorum of those who might want to explore. Many folks did not know the wonders of the south of this lake. Hmmm. I’ll just test how going thru the narrows is, with this wind. But with Curtis, right on my tail, being a perfect stand-in for the bad influence of Bill Buchholz, we stitched downwind before the lovely NW breeze, over-jibing to wind her up each time and maintaining a wonderful boat speed. Soon we were on extra-smooth ice in the sequence of bays and broads to the south.

With Curtis keeping close station, I felt the mounting mania. I saw that another iceboat had also gotten thru the narrows. We should loop back and herd him along. But I was gripped with bad-boy insanity. This was the absolute orgasm of iceboating. We immediately headed for our beloved SW arm of the lake, that long tricky, less windy, downwind 5 mile passage. None of the usual pressure ridges are in sight! This lake is totally bullet-proof! Crash! I dropped the starboard runner in the unseen pressure-ridge which marks the beginning of the SW Arm. My blinding mania deflated like a punctured tire. Luckily, Curtis had tools and screws, and with the rig, unharmed and still standing, we refastened the screws into the plank and, miraculously sailing again, headed for the calm and sun of Deep Cove.

There we sat on a south-facing rock in the bright 1PM sun. Total calm. Total silence. Our boats motionless near the shore. That surreal brightness. My soul, wounded by family pain, sucked it up. An IV of deep nourishment was rushing into my veins. Finally, sharing the last of the banana bread, and fearing the possible loss of wind while so far from home, we guessed and goshed our way out thru the cove’s fluky winds, explored the wide Muscongus Bay arm of the lake, and then easily beat back north through the narrows, savoring the smooth ice as we passed.

Back at the pits, boat gear was breaking dramatically on all sides. I took an absolutely delightful spin in Cheapskate–that quiet, gentle kitten–which easily floats you along, almost like a human body alone in space. It was just the come-down I needed from the earlier adrenalin rushes. I then left my boat on the ice. I’ve just got to–got to!–do this again.

P.S. I can’t help wondering what’s exactly in that nourishing IV drip. What is it that so sooths a troubled soul? I know I’ve quoted this Wendell Berry poem before:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Can bashing an ice machine into a hole, or sitting in a silent, sun-drenched cove be a “wild thing”? And can that “bad-boy” energy, so hard to stop, be the drive to rest ‘in the grace of the world’?

Yesterday’s grading of 7.5 from a walk out on the lake yesterday turned out to be optimistic.  It has been a long frustrating winter.

About a dozen boats turned up to sail in a somewhat fluky NW wind.  It was cold and the ice was fast resulting in the blemishes that seemed minor on foot became rather intrusive at speed.  The result was damage to four boats that the boats themselves probably felt was abusive.  The most serious was a spiral fracture of the springboard of Chris Conary’s nice old Yankee that he has justgottentosail.

.This  might be glueable but Chris says he has a piece of wood for the replacement.

The most unusual was Dave Fortier breaking off the end of his Super DN plank.  Cheapskate was sailing around enoying the ice scape when he saw Dave carrying something across the lake toward the far shore where his boat seemed parked.  What he was carrying was his starboard runner and a foot long stub of plank.  They met at his boat where, with parking brake off it was resting tilted toward the missing appendage.  It seems that when the runner came off Dave got out, picked it up, and assuming the boat would go no where on two runners didn’t set the front runner brake.  The boat sailed off on the two remaining runners all the way to the far shore.  Now what?  It was a long drag to the pits.  Cheapskate to the rescue of course. He pulled up to the crippled Super DN and offered a roll of duct tape and a coil of frozen line from his ice lined (the rain got in) lunch and parts department.  Fortier applied the duct tape and coiled the frozen line tightly over the fracture.  The stiff line bit into the tape to resist sliding around and Fortier saileduneventfully home to the pits.

Jory wanted to sail Cheapskate and suggested I take his icy wood for a ride, offer accepted.  I had heard that Jory had torn his plank loose in the narrows so I looked down at the plank attach plate and wiggled the plank which produced a merry dance of twinkling small screw heads down in the attach plate screw holes.  I declined the generous offer and queried Jory when he got back.  “Oh, not to worry I have been sailing the bejesus out of it since then”.  I wasn’t sure how much bejesus there was left.

Dammy Ice degraded to 5.5.  Hope to see you there tomorrow warts and all, still a lot of lovely ice to sail.

I forgot the best of all. This is the previous club house. Here name is Isabella and she was built in the twenties from ferro cement. They would anchor her in a cove and she’d freeze in for the winter. The club had a paid hand living aboard all winter who would keep the ship heated, and make meals and drinks on the weekends during the sailing events. The flag is the yacht club pennant, and you can also see the insignia on the smoke stack. Sure beats having lunch in the car!

Many of us remember when Fred Wardwell sailed his DN, and his remarkable roof top carrier with the CIBC torpedo loaded with gear. At the SIK they have real torpedo hanging oner a real bar in a real clubhouse. It rivals our own Red Bank club for depth of historical continuity.

History of Stockholm Iceyacht Club

For those of us who love crawling through old buildings filled with cool stuff, their boathouse is a gold mine. Located right next to the clubhouse and a stone’s throw from the water there are stacks of boats, rigs, planks and runners.

It’s hard to see anything in this jumble-shot, but I assure you it’s all iceyachts! The one in the foreground left is NORA, built at the boatyard on this island in 1902. She has two cockpits, is 45′ long,and is shown on a video that I will try to load onto the the site.

This is one of two such racks. Note the cast iron runners with the built-in chocks. They have phosphor bronze edges, which at the time was thought to provide the best running edge. Maybe it still does? The longest ones are over six feet long.

Here is one of the loveliest sternsteerer cockpits I’ve ever seen. This poor old girl hasn’t seen the ice for a while, but what great curves, the way a woman’s hips look when she’s sleeping on her side…

Thanks to Ulf and Mats for a fantastic tour, and to Mats wife for sending along coffee and buns. I hope to see you on your ice someday!