Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

The ice on Megunticok is hard frozen granular, essentially frozen slush, but hard enough to support many, many iceboats. The water from the other day has drained and evaporated, taking most of the snow humps with with it. The sun will shine tomorrow and the wind will blow, so even if the surface gets soft, slush runners will bring spray dappled grins to all our faces.

And don’t get the idea that because tomorrow is April First that this is some kind of sick joke. Nope: real ice, real sun and real wind, on one of the most beautiful and intimate lakes we know. Plus, in accordance with a new CIBC policy, Champagne will be served on every sailing day after March 31st. No Joke…

Jeff Kester from upstate New York has an interesting project under way. Don’t forget, the iceboat building season is about to start!

I am about to pull the trigger on a buy for 420HC stainless for runners and I am wondering if there would be any interest in your area. 420HC is similar to 440C, but it is more resilient against chipping and more corrosion resistant. Our plan is to make either 7 or 15 sets of skeeter blades. The sets will have 42” side runners and a 30” steer runner. I plan to do alligator nose style, but I also have a European modified bull nose pattern as well. I’d be interested in supplying partial or complete. At a minimum, I think it would be best to supply after water jet cut and vacuum heat treat. I could also supply edged, or completed. My plan would be to deliver them at the next New England swap meet.

I am not 100% sure of the cost yet, but am thinking a set completed would be under $1000. The runners will have 1-1/2”x2”x1/4” aluminum stiffeners and a 1” UHMW mounting bar for DN style chocks. Basically, these are modeled after Jack Jacob’s J14 runners.

Additionally, I am in the process of building a mast mold. The mast is 7-1/4”x2-1/8” in an aerodynamic tear drop shape. They will be glass and carbon, we will be able to do up to 22’ blanks. In the first year we will just make a few and prove them out. After that, we will be interested in selling a few to recover the tooling cost.

Contact Jeff at: jjkester

After scouring all the forecasts hoping for a racing window on Segago’s awesome ice, sailing for the weekend has been deleted. We will continue to scout for a good surface at South Twin, Sebec and Moosehead in the coming weeks. Their two feet of ice is still covered in snow, and the chance is excellent for a cold morning after a wet-out event.

Bravo to Lloyd, Bill and Ben for tearing it up yesterday like a trio of spring pups. I, for one, broke the don’t sail alone rule and hoping for some racing this weekend thought I should get a little DN cockpit time. I explored every nook and cranny of Megunticook and found it solid and tight. Jory hasn’t sailed our home ice all season so I had to get that in the books for him. Bob Lombardo was skating the perimeter and also found it excellent.

After the orgy of ice sailing on Dammy this last couple of weeks with the pits full of resting iceboats nights, sailors weary with epic commuting to the Southern hemisphere, racing around islands and generally taking advantage of typical end of season sail until you drop desperation. Then all of a sudden they left. Even Rambling Roger from Maryland having camped in his van for a week, nothing but ruts in the snow and frozen mud except for the HARD CORE.

Three patient skippers, Ben Fuller with antique “Tippy”, Bill Bunting with Nite “Red Herring” and Lloyd Roberts still doing acceptance trials with newly minted “Chaepskate”, waited out the gale winds of Wednesday intending to pull their boats Thursday before the long overdue Spring warm weather moved in. Just going to Dammy to load boats seemed frivolous so we assembled in late AM for a preload sailing.

The Wednesday gale had sucked in the usual gusty NW wind, but not arctic cold now, about 30. It was sunny and perfect March sailing. No voyages to the bitter end of the lake, just flying around on the ice possibly for the last time. Lloyd made one last trial of the assymmetrical plank testing for the desirability of a 7 foot plank vs. the plans specified 8 feet, the “sport model” Cheapskate. He figured that if the intended hiking was too much he could lower the whole sail. Unnerving abrupt hikes in puffs and one good whack in the head from a modestly lowered boom scuttled the research. Two new members, Ted and Carolyn Vaughn, experienced water sailors, came by to sail Cheapskate in the choppy air. While they played Lloyd offered to provide welcome ballast in Tippy which was already carrying 50 pounds of shot. We had a wonderful classic sternsteerer rumbling sail smashing through shell ice and snow mounds with aplomb and a fair turn of speed.

While we were off reaching the lake the Vaughn’s took turns sailing Cheapsklate having a great although chilling time, not enough clothes. The’ve gotta have one, maybe two. They already have some vintage made in USA bed rails. Then we adjourned for lunch having paid attention to the sign on Bunting’s “Trixie” terrier about stealing sandwiches and locked down the goodies. I dozed off in the sun in my truck after my sandwich, Bunting dozed off in the sun with Trixie in his lap. When we came to the sun was gone and the sky dark grey. Oops, time for one more loop around the pond and then knock them down maybe for the year.

Tippy got the start on Red Herring who was slow getting going. Cheapskate did one of her classic down wind starts and flew by Red Herring in hot pursuit of Tippy finally catching her at the far end of the lake. Then skipper Roberts nipped her around and decided to let ‘er go for the home end.

I couldn’t see much of the ice surface or even tell what the sail was doing with sun glasses in the dark gloom, but there was still plenty of wind. So I told Cheapie, “this is it girl, full tilt boogy for the far end, hold together now for the final leg of proof trials”. Pedal to the metal, both hands on the sheet, tiller between the knees, we absolutely flew the full length of the lake shell ice, unseen snow piles and all. We rounded up gently by the colored buoys near the State Park all pieces still connected together and a rare tingling running up my spine. The Fat Lady didn’t have a chance.

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Somewhere it has been written: Don’t believe everything you read. We can now confidently apply that dictum to the weather report. I searched many sites looking for wind this morning and found none. Where did I eventually find it? Ruffling the pines outside as I did the taxes, and then in hatfulls on Damariscotta Lake. By eleven we were sailing in a blustery snow squall, some boats with storm sails. An hour later the sun came out, the Southerly settled in at 10kts, and about a dozen boats frolicked the day away, stopping for the occasional reflective moment:

Doug Raymond organized scratch racing using islands and fish shacks as marks. In the light air we’d do one lap, heavier air two. As always, a great skill building exercise and something we need to do more often. Thanks Doug.
Lloyd got the Cheapskate to hike by offsetting the hull on the plank, creating in effect a seven foot plank on one tack and a nine on the other. He got his hikes, and feels the boat even looks more streamlined with the short plank.

A few of us took a late afternoon gamble and headed for the south end. It’s a long walk home, but with such a lovely plate of ice down speckled with islands that it’s always worth the chance. We made it to the bottom of Muscongus Bay, did a couple of deep gybes on the silent ice and headed for home. The SW was flukey, but held, and one of the boats was able to sail the entire eight miles back to the pits non-stop on one tack, including through the narrows. Many people tell me that performance isn’t really important, they just want to go out, have fun and sail around. But to have a well tuned boat gives you the capacity to rise to the challenge of long tours and get back before the wind dies, all the while marveling at the magic of flying on ice. Back to racing, this is where you learn how to go where you need to get to.

Regarding yesterday’s report of a lunch-eating-beast, we now have no excuse for loosing our food:

Thanks Trixie: forewarned is lunch in the bag.

Forecast for Sebago looks like no snow, but rain later in the week and possibly on the weekend. But please take note of the above comments on the forecast. Rain is coming to Moosehead next week, so we’re looking for wet-out there and then a deep freeze on a Friday…