Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

There will be North American Championships training scratch races on Toddy Pond, East Orland on Monday and Tuesday.

Check with Paul Chamberland for details: 518-764-0005

Bob MacEwan plans to sail from Lake Farm tomorrow, setting up around 9:30. Come one, come all. If it’s too sticky, either use the big wind on Monday to blow through it, or try Tuesday:

Tuesday plans for Graham have shifted to Branch Lake, with Toddy Pond as a back up. We have a new sailor coming all the way from Limestone to launch his freshly restored DN for the first time. Let’s show him how it’s done!

From Bob yesterday:

Once again Dammy provided a great day of sailing. Bright sun with winds 10-15 mph and 20 plus mph gusts out of the northwest and a beautiful plate of ice made for great sailing until around 14:30 when just about everyone was spent anyway. Two Buchholz built skeeters, one mini skeeter, two cheapskates, one kite sailor and Eddy Zelonish and his friend Scott on skates with sail wings took advantage of the conditions. I judge the ice was grade 7 and it held up all day. Dammy could still be good following the forecasted snow if it is cold and fluffy and isn’t too deep.

Then from Ralph today:

Only one other boat today.
Gusty winds produced some fast sailing.

Bob was right!

If you want to go sailing and you don’t hear any plans from this site, just write in or call me the day before and I’ll put it out there. These two guys got lucky today and happened to find another hearty soul there.

No snow in Belfast or Ellsworth. Graham Lake is most likely clear and has great ice:

I’d like to organize a sail there Monday. Any interest? Might be a challenging launch.

Toddy Pond is also probably clear.

On a tip from a reliable skater that Toddy Pond was tight enough top to bottom we set out to try it. There are two narrow choke points that separate the top bay from the bottom bay; the entire lake is seven miles long. The first was sketchy, but there was a plate just wide enough between the waters to squeeze the boats across.

The middle bay provided some wonderful cat and mouse loops around a marshy island in the corner, but on approaching the second choke point we found it impassable. Even for us. So we tip-toed back across our narrow ice isthmus and ran fast four mile laps in the top end. The wind was still strong and blowing right down the lake. A perfect course with tight competition.

And naturally we minded all the rules:

We were invited in for coffee by a curious observer right around lunch time. A lovely spot out of the wind, in full sun, with the fountianesque burbling of the dock bubbler in the background, and wonderful conversation to boot:

Damariscotta Lake had a small fleet sailing out of Lake Farm today, but no reports have come in. We assume the conditions are still stellar.

Snow tomorrow might buy us some time off, but it doesn’t appear to be much, especially the further north you look.

There will be a couple of boats at Lake Farm tomorrow: Bob MacEwan, Mini Skeeter, and Joel Tompkins, Cheapskate. Hopefully there will be more considering how good the ice is.

The two Whizz guys will be attempting a decent of Toddy Pond from the boat ramp off Rt.1, shoving off at 10:00.

Looks like snow Friday, so tomorrow might be it for a while. Don’t let it go to waste!