Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

The big storm tomorrow is all the talk in the line at the grocery store as people stock up on toilet paper and wine. But how much damage will it do? Will the snow which is due to be the final precip to fall, wet out in the preceding rain? Will the cold snap Saturday night flash freeze the resulting mixture?

The way we see it is that the tail end snow will fall into water forming a delightful slurry that will freeze hard overnight and give an excellent surface for Sunday. Then there’s the wind forecast. Yes, it will be windy, but suppose we call the day the Denis Guertin High Wind Mast Memorial Sail? Bring your toughest mast and storm sail.

The venue will be Lake St. George, site of last year’s closing sail. The lake appears to be in excellent shape, with no open water visible anywhere after an extensive scout. The ice is 16” thick and looks to be very high quality.

Here’s the view down a fishing hole. There is a skim of shell on top of the plate, but under that the ice was hard today even with the temps at 45.

The launch it tight to the plate, and don’t forget that the parking lot and launch ramp are paved. A big deal this time of year.

Below, the first bay after leaving the long stretch from the launch:

It looks like this will be the last hurrah for local ice as the daytime temps hit fifty most days next week, although Monday will still be cool enough and might give us a second day. So I urge everyone to take a drive, take a chance, and show up. It could be epic. There will be no updates as we won’t know what we got until we’re at the launch ramp Sunday morning.

There is a place far, far away, where the ice runs clear for thirty miles and the wind blows across hard right across it, where you sheet in, cleat it and drive the boat for all it’s worth the whole way. Protected behind a wall of paperwork, no American sailor has seen this parad’ice.

But there is one hearty Canadian who took up the challenge today on the big wind and big ice, and gave it his all. By 10:00 he’d clocked twenty miles. Just before lunch he scored the coveted CIBC mile a minute award:

That’s 69 mph.

Lloyd Roberts had an old saying: “there’s no dis-honor in pushing your boat to the edge of destruction at the end of the season”.

Taking Lloyd’s sage advise, Denis did just that, and then some. He’s in the market for a new mast!

We admire your spirt, Denis, and will get you rigged up before we sail next!

Here we are nearly in the middle of March and the spring sailing has been slim pickings. But yesterday was just about how it should be this time of year. Long days, warm, healed pressure ridges, and fine sailing with good buddies. Eight or nine boats showed up to take advantage of the short window. The ice had healed nicely, the SE wind picked up right on schedule, and so the only thing to do was head south. The ice got better down behind Wavus, and then very rough in the approach to the narrows and in the middle of the narrows itself. But along both sides was glassy smooth ice where you could pinch a bit and then glide silently into the next tack.
After all that smashing and crashing we popped out onto the most remarkable plate of the lake. The entire first bay at the south end of the narrows was a Pushaw 10. Absolutely silent sailing, the only sound the hum of the wind in the sail. We romped around on that until all the boats got down the narrows and then soared on through the rougher ice on Muscongus Bay, past Red Roof Island and into the river. There are a few point leads to watch, but the ice down there was nearly as nice as that first plate, especially along the edges.

We had been going upwind the entire way, and once at the end were faced with the long slog downwind in light and shifty air. Very challenging and technical sailing as the wind would swirl and fade around the many points and islands. But with the narrows facing NW-SE, the wind was funneling right through and by working the smooth spots at the marge got through in fine style. Then the wonderful romp back home in the broads. It’s an amazing sensation working your way slowly along shore, picking spots to tack, watching for trees overhead and open point leads, and then popping out onto big ice where the wind is full and you can put the petal to the metal and let the boat run.

The Mini Skeeters and Cheapskates were happy to say in the Broads and match race all day, along with a few others.
One clever skipper, tired of messing with clevis pins and split rings, went brutal:

We all know, of course, that the typical Phillips head screwdriver is 1/4”. A long pin with a handle, basically!

Up in Quebec on Lac Ste. Francois, Denis and Frank have the entire lake to themselves with excellent spring sailing conditions. Today is going to be just about as good as it gets with strong SW wind, sunshine and miles of big ice.

Hopefully next year the burdensome testing regime will have been retired for good and we can cross the border at a moment’s notice. You wouldn’t be getting this report if that were possible now!

There are good ice reports coming from Winnipesaukee, so don’t count that out just yet.

Further south, Bantam Lake is done. It had a decent plate of ice on and off all season and was well sailed.

Sunday might be our last shot at local ice before it begins to get really warm next week. It’ll be a long shot given the mess forecast for Saturday, but how hard it it just to show up and see?

Then we will start looking more seriously at the big upcountry lakes.

After reports from South Twin trickled in, it became clear that we have the best conditions right here at this time.

Mostly smooth grey ice. There was an inch of ice over an inch of slush, over about 7” of hard ice today. There’s a very good chance this will be buttoned up tomorrow.

A little pebbly in the pit area, but smoother further out. No sign of motorized ruts this time. Ice is tight to the shore at the beach.

Looking north from Wavus, the old pressure ridge has laid down and dried.

Launch from Lake Farm Circle.

Moosehead got some snow last night that didn’t wet out. Stand by for an on the ice report from South Twin.