Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

It doesn’t take much to satisfy a starving iceboater. Give us the clickity clack of the runners on ice black, the pressure of wind on the sail, an occasional hike and a few other sailors and we come home happy. What does it matter that we need to tack and gybe once a minute and keep a very focused eye on traffic because the pond is only a mile around. No islands, no straights, no bays. But we had all of this and more today on Attatash, a frog pond in Merrimac, Mass.

Luke Buxton came out of retirement for a nice spin in a loaner DN, John Bianchi ( who we thought was permanently ensconced in a cabana in Florida for the winter) happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped in for a visit. We marveled at the energy of Louise Racine, who bought his boat this year, and who has been to every Regatta so far and has signed up for all the rest! Jeff Nabb was there, as well as Rick Hobbs with his quiver of SkinBats. Dave and Kristin Buckley came up from Newport with a lovely new mast from Jeff Kent. Dave is determined to become very competitive this season and displayed some of his mojo by pacing Indigo for a couple of laps. This is significant as Curtis had re-vamped the sheeting on the old girl and seriously boosted boatspeed. He’ll be giving Whizzard company this winter! Thanks to Paul Delnero for scouting this platelet on his icebike, and to Jory for the excellent company on the three hour drive from Maine.

This is what it takes to keep iceboating viable: interested people finding sailable ice and the sharing it with the rest of us. Especially in this apparent drought we rely on teamwork more than ever. NEIYA scouts are scouring New England at this very moment searching for a plate large enough for the Doc Fellows Regatta this weekend. It hasn’t been called ON yet, but if you know of anything at least 1×2 miles please check in here, or with Eben Whitcomb at ebenw3@comcast.net.

When I read the forecast these days my eyes glaze over with the exciting variety of precipitation and super cold temps. Trying to interpolate a small sailing window is like trying putting a split ring into a cotter pin with frozen fingers. It just ain’t gonna
happen. This is all the reason we need to spend six hours in a car for an icy fix on a faraway frog pond.

Grey granular ice, sailable except for winrows and patches of dense snow up to 1 inch thick. Snow cover 20% +. Just a bit more rain would have fixed it. Too icy for snow mobiles apparently. Chopped a bunch of holes in flinty hard snow ice, only got down to water once at about 10 inches, that was 1/2 snow ice and 1/2 black. More snow at North end. Rode ice cycle around all over lake for an hour, no thin spots seen.

Dusting of snow makes it all white New Year’s day, would be hard to see snow patches to miss them if sailing.

Iceman

Our boats are loaded and pointed toward Lake Attatash with wheels to roll at 6AM. Here is the Google map for the launch area:

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=&daddr=Bisson+ln.,+Amesbury,+MA+01860,+us&ie=UTF8&ll=42.84523,-70.986743&spn=0.020012,0.050168&z=15

Paul Delniro has called in from the lake and is quite impressed with its surface. Nearby Baxter Lake was a disappointment, with insufficient wetting out and a further snowfall. No news of Bow Lake.

Also good news came in from Pat Keeley that Jordan Bay Sebago has frozen and with no immediate wind to goof things up, may be the place to be this weekend. Jordan bay is 2 miles wide at its widest E-W, and 3 miles N-S; so it’s quite a playground, even though it’s only a fraction of Sebago itself. Just the name will bring up powerful memories to many of us. Right now, tuesday, the ice is just a little more than an inch thick there, and snow is predicted for Thursday….so it represents our typical frustration. Pat will call in as things develop….

so, it’s still full speed ahead for Attatash….see you there, perhaps….jory

The natives are getting VERY RESTLESS… To quote an old poem:

Then came snow and freezing rain
A combination sure to pain
You couldn’t ski; you couldn’t skate
And harsh words passed tween man and mate.

no harsh words yet….the mate is away, actually….but

So Bill and I, and I hope some others, are doing a day trip to Attatash on New Year’s Day. Our spy, Paul Delniro has been keeping track of some of the lakes in that area, which somehow missed some of our big snowfalls. Access to the lake is via Attatash Road, which runs north from route 110, which is the last exit north on I-495. Just put in “Amesbury” on your google maps site. I may post an update later in the day….happy new year!….jory

Paul Zucco drove all the way from Connecticut to Squam Lake, one of the only sailable plates in the region, to christen his new Whizz and go sailing. He’s been a’building for a couple of years so it had to be doubly sweet to both find the ice and then sail the boat. Paul certainly looks happy here:

The snow was reported to be light and dry, with Squam receiving much less than surrounding areas. Lee Spiller and others made the most of it while the rest of us spent days digging out trailers and chasing red herrings.

Nice job, Paul, and we look forward to a Whizz regatta some time this season!

Photo Lee Spiller