Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Milo Fleming reports from Toddy Pond yesterday:

Toddy Pond was the place to be today. Four DNs, two Cheapskates, a Mini Skeeter, and Michael Young’s new Pocket Skeeter sailed until the sun began to touch the treeline.

Most of the group stayed on the north end of the plate, wary of the scattered pressure ridges on the south end. 8-17 knots of wind making the multitude of left turns a blast and turning the few remaining snow drifts back to powder. Henry Kavle, a newbie in a restored DN, was passing people just after lunchtime on his first day. Impressive to say the least. Michael Young’s new craft handled like a dream, plenty of visibility and plenty of room to sit back and watch the scenery disappear behind you, or in today’s case the DNs.

Is that….. the youngest sailor on Toddy Pond???

Boats will be at Toddy Pond boat ramp again today. Wind forecast says be there at 9:30am.

Boats will be at Damariscotta Lake farm and Toddy Pond tomorrow.

Branch Lake and Graham Lake are both a bust. Branch is bisected by a pressure ridge and the narrows are open, and Graham is teeth rattling rough.

The best bet for fun sailing tomorrow is Toddy Pond. The snow is minimal, the surface is good, access is great. There are three things happening there tomorrow: Fred Wardwell’s Renegade FroJoy will be back on the ice under the capable skippership of Terry Bloom. Second, we have a woman by the name of Kathie MacMahon who’d like to learn about the sport and maybe take a boat for a spin, and then we have Henry Kavle of Limestone (of all places) who has just restored a DN and is coming all the down here to try it. Be there for him!

Your correspondent and a few others will be crisscrossing the state searching for a suitable venue for the North American DN Championships. There’s a chance we could hold the regatta in Maine if we can find a suitable plate. We sailed two lakes today; shooting for three tomorrow.

And just for the fun of it, who can figure out what’s going on here:

non AI.

From Bob MacEwan:

Today was a stellar day on Damariscotta Lake with at least ten boats setting up at the Lake Farm for a day of sailing. I was worried that the lake would be crowded with fisherman because this is the free fishing weekend in Maine. But there wasn’t anymore than the usual number of fishing shelters and tip ups on the lake with plenty of room to enjoy the brisk southwest winds and sunshine on a classic February blue sky day.

The wind was mostly calm while we were setting up and you could feel the warmth of the sun as you worked to get your boat ready to go. There were two skeeters, two mini skeeters, three cheapskates, two Lochley Skimmers and Ed Zelonish’s little front seat skeeter. Also, there were couple of groups of skaters. I apologize to anyone else that was there that I missed.

The wind kicked in around 10:30 and built as the morning continued. I had rigged my bigger sail first and came in to rig my smallest sail just before lunch time. I’m guessing it was blowing 10-15 mph with up to 20 mph gusts. The strong wind was blowing the dusting of snow making small drifts all over the ice. The drifts got stiffer with time and you could feel a tug on your boat as you sailed through them. Everyone stayed on the northern plate and chased each other around. By 14:30 the wind was strong but short intermittent lulls were becoming more frequent. We all returned to the pits by 15:00 to start packing up to head home.

Scout Jim Turner confirms that the launch at Branch Lake is clear with a nice ramp, and that the little snow will mostly blow away in the strong winds tomorrow. As far as we know, this will be the first iceboats on this particular lake. We’ll either find out why or discover a hidden treasure.

Remember scratch racing at Toddy Pond tomorrow. Might be more slide and skid than scratch racing given the wind forecast. But what fun!