Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Solo sailing is frowned upon and never a good idea, but being unable to travel to Pashaw and join the rest of the crew, I decided to check the ice at camp, after finding 18” of grade 7 ice with no drain holes and 0 pressure ridges, I decided with a dozen ice fishermen, and brother on a snow machine watching I’d give it a go. With the wind out of the West at 9 MPH it called for the full rig. Making runs eight miles long at speed with only the ice shacks and a few trucks racing up and down the lake to watch out for made for some great fun. Not as much fun as with friends with fast boats though. Now I sit at home with the snow coming down and temps in the mid teens I’m hoping for a good blow to clear off the ice for another round of this great winter sport. See you on the ice.

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Another one day ice boating wonder, right between a heat wave and a blizzard. The plate dried out and froze hard, the moat and drain holes built a whopping two inches overnight; must be a record.

You can tell by the oily scum where the edge of the water was. This scum appears around drain holes this time of year. It’s assumed to be remnants of two stroke exhaust from ice augers and older snowmobiles. Thankfully we are seeing more electric of the former and four strokes of the latter. Two inches of fresh ice on these drain holes made the entire lake trouble free except a few point leads and one mysterious small hole.

This lake is really one of the best we have. Great access, easy to get to, a nice combination of wide open sailing and tight island rounding. Best of all it’s an upwind-downwind lake, meaning there’s not much opportunity for “Reaching Around”. This is when you have a fleet of boats reaching back and forth with no real rules to guide them. It’s a recipe for disaster and the skippers have no chance to hone their sailing skills. Lloyd railed against this for years. If you have no where to go, set up marks.
Here, you need to beat upwind seven miles, and then get downwind from there. It just doesn’t get any better. Well, actually, it does. We held a short track DN race on a plowed loop discovered at the top of the lake. Might have been for skaters, but it was unclear. Was was clear was that it needed to be raced upon:

Here’s Milo in the lead, using his narrow runway saiing skills honed at Loring. It was a close haul up one leg, maybe throwing in a quick tack if the wind shifted, big peel off at the top with some boats hiking around the turn, and then a tight run down. The bottom turn was just as exciting as most bottom marks. If we want to make iceboating an olympic sport, this is how to do it. It would be just as exciting and crazy as short track speed skating.

Tip of the helmet to all the guys who took a chance on the forecast and scored: Bill Bunting, Milo Fleming, Curtis Rindlaub, Dave Hoder, Larry Mazoway, Michael Young, Jeff Rosenbery, Tyler Vroman, Jack Wright, and the two French guys on Freeskates from UMO. You coudn’t have asked for a more perfect day. We even got to do some tree climbing, always fun on a fine spring day, to reeve a lost halyard down a mast.

As predicted earlier in the season, we have built some very high quality ice this winter. It will harden up easily overnights as we move into spring, so there will be more excellent sailing to come.

Lastly, it’s great to see the mighty Hagary back on her element. She carries a fresh paint job but there’s no mistaking this unique design by Ray Ruge. And then there’s that famous sail number…

The ice is now grey and smooth with no standing water. The surface is a bit slushy, but even with the hight temps no footprints were made without stomping. There is a moat at the launch ramp. Looks like we’re in for a fine day of spring sailing! Thanks to Bob Lombardo for checking it today.

Bob Lombardo skated the pond top to bottom the past two days and saw nothing to bother an iceboat except the place called Fortier’s Lead. We have a one day weather window on Thursday to sail this plate. There’s still a day of wet and warm between us and it, but based on recent recoveries at Damariscotta and Winnipesaukee it appears that it will get cold enough to button it up. Plus, it will be dry and windy Wednesday afternoon once the front passes. Never underestimate the power of evaporation, or the optimism of iceboaters.

Launch at Goulds Landing.

Thin Kice

Starting with the gang in St. John, New Brunswick, David Welch send us this: ”Good sailing to be had over here in New Brunswick. After a thaw, rain, freeze cycle Chamcook Lake just outside of Saint Andrew’s By the Sea has presented a sailable plate. Three boats and many keen hands sailed gusty swirling winds to great success. Two DN’s and a two seater Gambit are being put through their paces. This is the fourth day of sailing in the last month after the sizable snow pack disappeared. We have been licking our lips watching so many sailors enjoying Maine ice. When our current headwind (covid) abates we hope to travel down your way for some good old down east hospitality.”

Further out on Prince Edward Island Peter MacClaine and his buddies have been slowly building up their Nite fleet. They have a nice plate of ice right now on an inland bay at the north shore. Looks about the same as Winnipesaukee round the edges.

Note the “tree house” and the wind sock. Inside the circle of trees planted in the ice is a barbecue grill and a picnic table. Some folks just know how to live. Could these be re-cycled Christmas trees?

And further out yet, on the Isles de Madelaine, halfway to Newfoundland right in the middle of the Straights of Belle Isle a small fleet of curious boats are having a great time on salt ice.

It looks like someone has a mold and popped out a bunch of fuselages. Apparently they are a knock-off of a design discovered in a Popular Mechanics article from the forties. Note the runners. Apparently the ice/snow gumbo is soft enough to need skunners. Looks hard enough in this picture. The four over four sheeting looks like they know how to haul the sheet. They must get teriffic winds there with nothing but open sea in all directions. We might need to mount an arctic expedition to investigate the local culture.

Locally, Thursday is still looking good. Reports from Pushaw tell nothing but good. No ridges, no holes, tight to the shore and a ton of thickness. The skaters are liking it, so the iceboaters will probably love it.