Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

One inch dry snow last night, none left on radar @ 8 AM, patches of blue sky, light NE wind forecast.

Tom Childs reports from Lake Sebago that Pump House bay is like a plate of polished granite. He’s calling it a 10+ and gone to heaven. No word on how far out it goes; the main body is not frozen yet. But the bay is at least as big as Chickawaukee. Don? Dennis? Paul?

And our Canadian buddy Denis Guertin sailed Moosehead Lake today and send this video:

With the light winds they weren’t able to cover all those beautiful miles of ice, but from the images he sent it appears to be as nice as what we sailed today on Chicky. Which, by the way, was an absolute iceapalooza with twenty five boats short reaching back and forth across Chickie’s belt in a moderate southwesterly. The object was to not kill or be killed, and everybody won! Some people were freaked out with all the traffic, but a natural flow was established and the heightened intensity brought about by the high velocity close proximity sharpened the senses and guaranteed that you needed to pay attention. So much chaos in the end develops order. There must be a rule in physics about that…

There will be boats back at Chicky tomorrow, but your correspondent along with his trusty sidekick will explore Damariscotta, setting up at 11:00. Join us if you want.

Moosehead is penciled in for Monday depending on how close this storm passes.

Small piece of the fleet at Robert’s Beach today. Welcome to the three hard travelers from Maryland. I hope you get that busted headstay fixed in the morning!

Bill just called, and doesn’t want to split the fleet between Chicky and Darmiscotta. Besides, the call of beans and black bread on Chicky is just too strong. So our plan is to sail Chicky on saturday, and then possibly move on, pending snow reports, to Damariscotta or Moosehead for Sunday/Monday. If you’re coming from out of town, don’t forget lakewatchmanor.com for a great place to stay right on Chicky….think ice….jory

Scott Woodman took a long walk on Damariscotta and found that there is still 7″-11″ of hard clear ice. Not qiute black, but nearly transparent. Drain holes have skimmed over and might be solid by Saturday given the temps forecast. They will need to be scouted before any serious ripping around occurs. He calls the surface an 8+, with minimal ripples.

Lloyd has called sailing On for Chicky, which means beans and bread. So it looks like another split fleet weekend. As of this writing, we plan to have boats on Damariscotta tomorrow. Snow is forecast for late Sunday so we might get two days out of it, although the wind is supposed to blow all kinds of directions but at moderate velocities (phewww) for a change.

Anything changes, you’ll be the second to know!

Two days of record warm gale winds in 50’s, both temps and speed melted inches off stolid old Chicky so that moorings put out when the ice was 4-5 inches came to the surface and the whole moored fleet ended up on the beach.
Two hours later all were remoored, some covers rewrapped, and order was restored thanks to yeoman labor by John Eastman who ended the exercise by stepping in a drain hole and getting more soaked than he had been from rain and sweat.
A few large drain holes persist (1/2 inch ice cover Fri AM) around the mooring and beach area. the gale Southerly winds drove the melt and rain water down the lake to do the holes, fishing holes out to 2 feet! All should be healed Saturday or marked. much of the rest of the lake was scouted Fri before breakfast and NW winds. A lot of the lovely ice in Eastern portions is marred by scars of healing puddles leaving varying washboard too rough to skate on, rattly for ice boats with intervening patches of velvety 10 grade ice. The surface improves toward the Western sheltered parts of the lake and the Southern bay, nice stuff.
There will be a Winter Carnival at the public beach this weekend, launch your ice boats at Lloyd’s beach at other end, 140 Porter St.

The lead ballast does work, however structural stresses will increase proportionately, beware of too much of a good thing. I thought the Gambit sail on the Super DN was the nuts for cleaving through snow drifts, until the fuselage broke.