Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

While the CIBC was opening the 2022 season right on schedule on Plymouth Pond with the Linc Davis Regatta,( the rest of the DN world was in Ashby, Minnesota on Lake Christina for the Western Challenge. Billed as the best ice in Minnesota the first weekend in December and put on by that state’s iceboaters, it’s a fun, usually unscored and unranked regatta. This year there were nearly seventy boats from as far away as Florida, Canada and New England. There were seven Yankees: T Theiler, Karen Binder, John Stanton, Eric Anderson, Chris Gordon, Chad Adkins and yours truly.

There was a wet snow Thursday night, coating the lake with a thin layer of slush and adding to the damage caused by high temps the previous day. The four inches of black ice had weekend considerably. Thankfully there was no wind Friday and the three involuntary human immersions and one boat occured close to shore. Aside from that, the day was lovely and everyone wandered around chatting, catching up and checking out the other boats. In spite of the lousy ice conditions a spirit of hope and joy filled the air.

Overnight temps froze the crappy ice and after a thorough check racing was on. Wind was 4-8, ideal for those folks who enjoy the technical challenge of light air sailing. Gold and silver fleet two lap races were banged out in quick succession with long starting lines seeming to vanish over the horizon.

Racing continued until dusk, when the wind died and many happy sailors could be seen slowly pushing back to the pits, obviously in no hurry to leave the ice, which stayed hard all day. The lesson here is that even the most marginal penciled ice can recover enough to sail on, with caution.

Saturday night brought more snow, big wind, and not much cold. The snow seemed to inspire the ice to revert to pencils, and one hearty sailor quickly dropped a runner and his leg right through the junk. So everyone turned to and helped get all the boats off the ice and packed up. After many goodbyes, the desolation of northern Minnesota returned to the lake.

A big shout out to the the locals, who were friendly and interested and very welcoming. When the boat went through the slush ice, one of the on-lookers dashed off to get a boat to help with the recovery. Wherever we went for breakafast or dinner, folks would come over and ask how the sailing was. And everyone asked abut that boat in the ice, as it was right next to the road. It serves as a good reminder in these times that people are generally good and kind. Sadly, that’s not what makes the news. But a big iceboat regatta with folks from all over is one of the places you can see humanity at it’s best!

RESULTS 2021-22 Linc Davis

Guy Pollyblank 1,1,1,2,1,1 5

Michael S Young 4,2,5,3,3,2 14

Tyler Vromen 5,3,2,4,2,DNF 16

David Fortier 2,4,4,5,4,3 17

Jim Gagnon 3,5,3,6,5,DNS 22

Jeff Roseberry 1,6,6 25

I was late for the action on Saturday as I stopped in my home town of Waterville for my Aunt Connie’s funeral. The funeral was a funeral, but the family had a bit of a coffee snack get together and many cousins that I had not seen in quite some time. The visit was terrific, but a bit more ice time than I had planned was gone. I did get back on the road, and Plymouth is less than 45 minutes north of Waterville. Insulated coffee cups are great and I still had semi hot coffee for the rest of the drive. 

When I arrived at Plymouth on Saturday there were mostly skaters, kite wingers and Jory on his kick sled. The ice was a uniform black and those that had been scouting reported a good 3 inch thick plate in the iceboat-able area. All of the ice boating scouts were planning to be back on the ice with their boats on Sunday and there was just a slight breeze when I arrived with my DN, so I set up anticipating a possible ride before sunset.

When I had finished setting up the DN I believe well before 1500. I donned my spikes and pushed out in hopes of more wind away from the shore. That was not the case, but I was able to determine that my runner alignment was close to perfect. With as good of a push as I could, my boat coasted halfway across the lake, maybe that was two pushes. There I relaxed laying in my boat for a while hoping for just a bit of wind. It was a beauty of a day, and there were many automobile drivers that stopped in the parking area to have a look at the ice. When I finally decided that the wind was not to appear I pushed and glided back to the launch. When I was breaking my boat down folks continued to stop, a few asking how much ice, my reply was enough to skate. I drove back to Biddeford with that comfortable feeling of having a boat set up and ready to go in the morning. Fortunately I had the assistance of Jim when he texted me to ask if I had the marks, a good reminder for me to load them int the car that evening.

Sunday when I arrived a minute or two after 1000 there were a good number of boats on the ice and a fraction of an inch of powder snow. Two or three mini skeeters five or six DNs setup or being set up, skaters as well. Guy and Tyler’s boats were set up and took the marks out and set the course. There was indeed wind, but difficulty getting the marks to stay up. I had lengths of line in my car and Guy was able to put enough tension on the tripod marks to do the trick. That is now on my list of thing to modify this week, thanks for setting the marks you guys.

As I said the wind was good and  most of the snow was blown into small insubstantial drifts. We went out and started to race using the count to three yell self start system. The system works well when the counter cannot run anyway, so fair start. The first race went well, but another bad race planning issue arose, I neglected to bring a pad of paper and pencil. Fortunately Jim had his iPhone, and was able to record finish places with that. The wind held and we had six races with many of us battling it out, but Guy was the fastest DN out there for this Linc Davis. I blame my inconsistent speed on mast rotation/inversion issues, enough to really piss me off! 

Jeff Roseberry, the man with many sail numbers was a bit late getting out to the course, but fast when he got there. I think he said that he was having runner sharpness issues as I believe Tyler was also. That is one thing that was working well for me, runners. I and others took a few more runs up and down the lake because the wind was holding and the ice perfect. The forecast called for warming with precipitation, and sure enough when I looked at the radar this AM there was some on the map, and the temperature in Bangor now at 1357 is indeed 54F. Will Plymouth ice survive, or will we be starting from scratch?

Thanks to all sailors that helped get the Linc Davis 2021 to happen. Time to go stone my 3/16 inserts and modify those racing marks. Thinking Ice, Dave

Plymouth received a dusting of snow on Saturday night but it didn’t slow the enjoyment of a group of 14 sailors with sharp runners on Black Ice. With a 10 mph NW wind and blue skies the opening day of the 21/22 Maine iceboating season began. With no hazards the pond was ours. Six DN’s held 5 races to complete the 21/22 Linc Davis Cup race. Results to be released at a later date. Others enjoyed cruising, remembering how to assemble their boats and talking with old and new friends. With today’s weather its hard to tell if the plate will survive, but with cold temps in the near forecast there may very well be sailing later this week. Our scouts will keep us informed so watch for a post. And we’ll see you on the ice.

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Well, we have ice!
Plymouth Pond is the best I’ve seen in years, I checked several spots and found a consistent 3” of grade 9 ice, with cold temps predicted for tonight there should be even more tomorrow, The winds were lite but the ice is tight. There were several skaters and a few kite wings there today, including myself. Dave Fortier set up his boat but the winds did not cooperate for a sail today. He left his boat on the ice and plans are to hold the Linc Davis Cup race tomorrow so bring DN’s if you got them. With warm temps and a chance of rain on Monday this may be it for a while. C U 2 Morrow.

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