Here’s a brand new pocket skeeter for sale.

Composite mast, mylar sail, 36” Sarns Plate runners, 9” super chocks. Hull weighs 75# all up, car toppable. Wheel steering, tapered sheet. 11” plank optimized for 160# skipper but will tune if needed.

Ready to go, Camden, ME

Will deliver to Swap Meet. $5900.oo. Bill: 207-975-6980 bill

Classic sheet blocks.

With all the chat about this winter’s NEIYA Vintage Gathering, here’s a little something.

A few years ago, on an early season tip from Lee Spiller, we sailed Lake Cobbosseecontee. The lake is nine miles long, wide in some places but basically long and skinny, located near Augusta. There is a launch ramp at the very south end and another at the north end so either way, you need to sail the entire length of the lake. On a northwest wind it’s a close beat northbound. Bill Bunting may know better, but to our knowledge the club had never sailed Cobbosee, as it’s known locally.
On this particular day a few boats had shown up, eager for early black ice. The plate was covered in little frost flowers and there wasn’t a breath of wind. But just as the last boat rolled down the ramp and began to set up, the breeze filled in nicely and the fleet set out. Tack on tack we beat north until we began to feel the wind lighten. There were still a few miles to go, but it became a game of chicken: who was going to be the sensible one to turn back first?

At each tack crossing we’d look at each other, shrug the shoulders and waited to see who’d blink first.
And when that common sense sailor, whoever it was, bore away for the run back we all joined in at full throttle.

Later that same year we got a call from an elderly gentleman who lived at the north end of the lake, offering his old stern steerer to a good home. The boat had been at Cobbosee since his father’s time, which brings us to the point of the story and the squaring of the circle, so to speak.

Could our stern steerer have taken part in this regatta? Paul D’Orsay now has the boat and sails it actively. Like Bunting, he’s quite the historian so we leave it to him to track down this handsome trophy.
Thanks to Henry Bosset for sending in the clipping.

Fall meetings and Swap Meet 10/29 -30!

New England Ice Yacht Association The 2023 ‘Vintage Challenge’ is on! Jay Whitehair Vice Commodore Oct 6 As temperatures start to fall for the season we are officially calling out for the vintage fleet to return to the ice. If you own or know of any boats that have been tucked away for too long this is the year to dig them out and get them up to speed once again. Normally it just takes a little help from your friends to pull a boat from storage, asses it, make a few repairs and then prep it for easy trailering. The best time to do that is now when it is warm and colorful – it’s a GREAT time to be outside! If you know of anybody that might not be aware of our special ‘Year of the Vintage’ and has a craft that seems appropriate to sail please encourage them (call them out!) and offer the help they might need to bring their kit to the ice. A reminder to all that at our 2023 primary event there will be many willing hands waiting to help those in need for launching, set up and removal. We want to see as many vintage boats as possible. No matter the design, condition, or builder. At this time it looks as though the main event will be held on Lake Winnipesauke in central NH. The most central venue we can work with. NEIYA would like to thank Frank Pratt and Randy Rice of the NH Lakes region for coordinating the donation of a D class stern steering ice boat. The boat sat idle for decades in a garage gathering dust and getting buried deeper with each passing summer. As you can see in the photos below, the first wipe of a cloth reveals a beautiful boat that had been long forgotten. The boats name which is stenciled on the original sail bag is “Blue Streak”. The age of the boat as with most other details has yet to be determined. Is it possible this small stern steerer is the forefather of the Bluestreak class ice boats? The Bluestreak 60 class eventually changed its name to the DN60. How many boats might have carried the name Blue Streak back in the days? Bringing a boat like Bluestreak back to the public eye is exactly the goal of this years event. Seeing the old varnished wood sail again, taking and offering rides, regaining knowledge of our vintage history. Who knows…. we might even hear some vintage "winter thunder” roaring down the lake. Keep in mind you have to be there to witness it. Just like to ‘ole days. Comment

First ice of the season reported yesterday in Ste Aurelie, Quebec. This is the little village just across the border where we have had many nearly season sails on Lac Jolie and Lac Abenakis. Denis Guertin reports that this particular plate in on neither of the lakes and probably didn’t survive past lunch time.

But according to Denis it was an honest 1/4”. Not bad for October 1.

Stand by for CIBC and NEIYA iceboat swap meet and meetings weekend of October 29!

During the long stretch of dog days there are two dates of interest to iceboaters: the summer solstice, when the days begin to shorten, and today, the first day of fall, when then the night becomes longer than the day.

When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze
And touches with her hand the summer trees,
Perhaps you’ll understand my memories of cold spice
As autumn walks to winter and turns cool lakes to ice.

And then there are the swap meet and meetings. Hope to see you all there.