Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Light to no air in the morning confounded the forecast. Driving in, most flags along the road were bar tight. The perennial question of what sail to rig went round and round. The matter was finally resolved by the wind itself, which came in with enough ummph to send a trailer rolling away down the lake, along with helmets, sail bags, stands, and anything else not weighed down. Thankfully, the boats with sails rigged were facing head to wind and just got a good shake.

It settled in to a steady twenty, so it was storm sails all around. The SW wind was driving right up the River. Boats short tacked up and sleigh rode down, timing the tacks and gybes to lay the crooked turns just right. Magnificent sailing.

There were gaggles of skaters and skate sailors, all taking advantage of this amazing stretch of excellent conditions.

A trio of die hards made a run for the Narrows in the last of the breeze, now down to a whisper. Two out of three made it through before realizing it would be a very long walk home. The boats coasted from puff to puff all the back to the pits, making for an wonderfully calm coda to the blasts of the day.

The plan is to de-camp to Lake Megunticook on Friday, Bob Bridge launch. Wind tomorrow is light and variable. Thee’s a chance of light snow Friday. Speaking of which, we had just that this morning at Vannah Rd. It was sailable, but after the joy of smooth ice yesterday it was mildly disappointing. But that mighty gust mentioned earlier? The plate went from white to black in the blink of an eye!

The mind is half froze and wind blown…

Note the special guest from Quebec! About the ice, all the sailable plate is just like this.

There is great ice popping up everywhere across New England, but on our little plate of heaven there is no space for disappointment. Aside from the large inland sea of soft water it is full speed everywhere. The river is in exceptionally good shape. Eight boats are on the ice now; the forecast for tomorrow is excellent. For that matter, the forecast is great until next Monday! What did we do to deserve this?

First a quick note that ice is good on MDI. Contact Michael Young for details: michaelyoungswh

Out west:

(CNN)At least 34 people were rescued on Saturday after being stranded on a large chunk of floating ice off the shore of Point Comfort on Green Bay, according to the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin.

At about 10:15 a.m., Brown County received a report that a large chunk of ice had broken from the shoreline off Point Comfort and that there were multiple people stranded on it, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
In less than two hours, all the people who were stranded on the floating ice were rescued with no injuries.

“It is believed a barge that had gone through the Bay shortly before the ice breakage may have contributed to the destabilization of the ice,” the sheriff’s office said.

The floating ice chunk was about a mile from shore by the end of the rescue and had floated about three quarters of a mile during the rescue, the sheriff’s office said.

“Although the chunk of ice remained fairly stable, its condition was deteriorating rapidly (and) cracking up as it moved with the open water pounding at the edge of it,” the office added.

Shane Nelson told CNN affiliate WLUK he and Robert Verhagen had been out ice fishing for the first time when they heard a loud noise.
“It sounded like almost somebody fired a gun out there,” Nelson said. “We thought it was interesting. We got out of our shanty, looked and … a couple people were yelling that the ice was separating.”

CNN’s Laura James and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.

Five inches of perfectly recovered ice all the way to the north end of Muscongus Bay, where you’ll see a large area of open water. Deep Cove is good, as is the River down to the first turn.

Very cold tomorrow, come prepared, but do come. Ice is easily grade 9.25.

Please note Jim’s guidance on the parking in the previous post. Just on the lake side, and as close to the edge as you can. Even better, park in the wider part close to the railway tracks once you are un-loaded.