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Date: December 6, 2005
Plymouth pond glazed over!
Good report from our wonderfully intentioned,
but only approximate,
Plymouth Convenience Store. they report that plymouth pond is glazed
over
now. perhaps one of our nearby spies can check it out, maybe
thursday, as the ice hopefully grows, and
report back.
put the boat together in the front yard. it went together like
a
swiss watch. why not, i guess? as usual, the hardware is willing,
but the software is gets weaker.
now lets work on 'warm and safe' personal gear. time for a new
helmet? is my head really worth
it? maybe glove liners. new
goggles. hmmm.
the borrowed
sail from dave wilkins looks fantastic: smooth as
an airfoil should be. the old ricebag needed a gale to smooth
it
out. Hmmm. i'll be sailing with wilkin's number, wilkin's sail...
does that mean...yes,
it must: dave's go-fast skills will also
convey! watch out my fellow tail-draggers from the back
of the
fleet! i won't mention names. you know who you are. i'm moving up
to the
front of the back, or maybe the back of the middle!
December 9, 2005
Friday's
report from Plymouth Pond, Maine
when you want to teach a laboratory rat to push a lever,
you can
reinforce that behavior with a goodie, like food. The rat will
eventually casually push
the lever when it is hungry. However, it it
gets food only randomly and rarely from lever pushing--intermittent
reinforcement--, it will quite obsessively push the lever. this is
because, as we all know, LABORATORY
RATS ARE HOPELESS GAMBLERS.
a near cousin to the laboratory rat is the aged iceboater. a
blizzard was predicted. no strong wind was predicted. a difficult
return drive was almost certain.
and still, at precisely 9:45AM six
iceboaters appeared as if by magic on the landing of Plymouth Pond.
The day before had been perfect ice, perfect wind, but alas, no
iceboats.
Now we
were geared up, keyed up, and obeying the ancient iceboat
maxim: show up and roll the dice.
The ice was already covered with 1/2 inch of snow with no wind
to blow it off. more snow was falling, giving
a total white-out to
most of the pond.
still, strangely, we enjoyed pushing the lever,
even though the
goodie was largely missing. Jory got to see his new sail in action.
Lloyd
completed the sale of his Gambit to John Eastman. John got a
few slow first runs in his new boat. Dave
Fortier got to try his
right-out-of-the-shop new boat and to spar amazingly well in the
light air with
Harry. Doug Raymond got to practice skipping school
without guilt. Fred Wardwell got to yakk it up,
avoid the futility
of setting up his boat, have a car breakdown, and still drive home.
Fred Kircheis
got to meet many of us for the first time and show off
his lovely boat.
the wind built
slightly as the afternoon progressed, but alas,
the snow deepened in equal measure, adding drag. We got the
occasional moderate runs and stalls, all with very little sense of
boat speed, as the visual white-out and auditory
snow dampening
deprived the senses.
by 3, with snow still falling, all but the
hard core, Dave and
Harry, were in cars for the slow trip home.
a few laboratory rats
are talking about pushing the lever again
tomorrow...sigh...i'll probably be among them..
December 17, 2005
megunticook memories
looking at Camden's Megunticook Lake this morning, a scarey, creaky
irish
stew of ice conditions, i doubt somehow that the lake will
repeat this year that amazing day we had last season:
bitter cold,
hatfuls of wind, when we chased each other up the turnpike channel
and back south on the
other side of the islands, each lap requiring
its sequel. who could ever stop?
....and the lake had frozen
in a unique way, so our that runners
sang us a staccatto symphany of different sounds, as they encountered
the scallops and tiny sculpted snow drifts on the black black ice..
.... and brian lamb and i said what the hell and
we sailed off into
oblivion , up the narrows, the wind moderating, to the north end of
the lake, where
bay after bay was frozen perfectly, and the skaters
kept turning up, stoned, stoned on the beauty of ice,
and we all
pushed, in the dying afternoon light, into every deserted and secret
cranny
of that glorious place. the only word that comes to
mind ........ is 'holy'
today on megunticook
December
23, 2005
I checked my logic before leaving the house this morning. here was a
beautiful patch of
ice 2.5 miles from my house, with good wind
predicted. a secure place to set up the boat. a couple other
iceboaters possibly coming. did i want to sail, or hang around
sending christmas cards to people i haven't
seen in two decades?
mmmm. tough decision
I knew brenda would pout if i went. did the early
gatherers pout
when the early hunters went off to hunt? but i guess those early
hunters were
bringing back something essential, so the gatherers got
with the program. but were the early hunters really
hunting? out of
sight of the caves, what were they really doing? hmmm. maybe hobbies..
out on the
lake, the wind was very light and very flukey. I found
the most wind over off Fernald's neck. but only
occasional reaches.
but you can learn a lot sailing in light air. do tacks or jibes keep
you
going best? seemed like tacks. being quick on the sheet in
flukey winds seemed important. no time
to change boat direction,
gotta do the sheet. can't flatten the sail too much. you can see
how
light air separates the sheep from the goats....
but the real joy was seeing
how well the runners were tuned
up. the boat could glide forever. very hard to tell if the boat
were moving or not, so smooth was the transition. its satisfying to
keep at this sport.. making
all the little changes...
by 2 PM after a couple nice naps in my tax-free waterfront property
with million dollar
views, i decided to head for home and try 7 AM
tomorrow. i wonder what the weather change will be....
December
24, 2005
twas the morn before christmas, and all cross the lake
no leaf was a'stirring for an iceboater's sake...
popped
hopefully out of bed at 6am. damn : two inches of damp snow
and my tell-tale oak-leaves were limp.
yet
i obeyed the iceboaters motto: show up with all the gear and pray.
all the gear of course includes: skates and the collapsible
hiking
poles which makes skating funner and safer for old farts
x-c skiis in case the ice is kyboshed somehow...
once
on the ice, amid the sad iceboats--my runners still on of
course--it was the thickest white-out i've ever seen.
definitely
compass or gps conditions. so i struck out northwest, where
fernald's neck must
lie, using more reliable navigation than hansel's
breadcrumbs: i could always follow my own tracks back.
and sure
enough after 5 minutes of sensory deprivation, a grey smudge appeared
at 100 yards.
and yes,
matilda, a real-live drain hole. looked like a meteor hit,
with scraggley black water rays out thru wetted
snow from the 1 inch
center hole. must be that the weight of new snow forces water up
thru a crack
and then widens. hmmm. i always thought drain holes
drained down.
after skating a quiet rythmic
mile up the western defile, i lay on
my back in the fluff and watched the blue grey sky turn to baby blue
with stationary little clouds. hmmm. no upper air movement. bet
this is a windless day.
who could not love this: when the eternal
hope of wind and ice brings you to this unlikely zen-like
situation.
skating back to the landing, i worked out a new plan. step 1: undo
stays, wrap around mast and
put on car. step 2: unbolt runner plank
and put iceboat on car with steering runner attached. step 3
put
runner plank upside-down on car with runners attached . this
would further
consolidate my reputation for sleaze.
no, instead, i just got into that quiet zen of decommissioning an
iceboat.
lovingly, oiling the shiny sharp runners--by golly there is
overnight rust... a grateful ritual, too: those
early hunters didn't
have this stuff.
all loaded, i couldn't bear to leave the ice, so i sat once again
on dickie's runner plank. 8:26, the brave sun, was just gilding
everything with a blast of yellow-white.
the iron-clad rituals of
breakfast seeped inperceptibly into mind... sigh..i guess the pre-
christmas
fat lady is finally singing.
Subject: Thursday Morning....snowfall...
January 5, 2006
snow is gently falling
in the morning calm, flakes big as dimes.
the iceboater's mind clicks to attention: how much accumulation?
can
i sail over it before it becomes wind-packed? when is the next thaw
due?
but there's a wonderful
contentment, because yesterday was that
orgasmic iceboating day that, like good sex, leaves you mellow for
days to come.
it reminds me of Rumi's lovely poem:
On a Day when the wind is perfect
A sail just needs to
open
And the world is full of beauty
Today is such a day.
Of course, Rumi was talking cosmic. not
iceboating. probably
talking about flowing along without resistance to the wind of life.
but...
it also fits yesterday:
the sunny days had somehow polished Chickawalkie's fairly good ice
into really good ice.
i don't know how. and then the wind was, what
i've now decided is, ideal wind: strong enough for occasional
but
not constant hikes. and strong enough to give the boat that
squirrelly feeling when the last
bit of sheet is sheeted and the mast
takes its 3" bend. the bow runner skitters, then regrips. and
you're mighty glad your runners are sharp. this is almost spin-out
stuff.
it was cloudy, bitter cold,
and i initially wondered if the hobby
were indeed overrated. was it worth it being out here? but then
the
magic gradually took hold. especially when we put out two marks and
Lloyd challenged me to a
regatta. loser of each race could choose
between his super DN and my pretty-well-tuned-now regular DN.
Miracle
of miracle, I actually won the first two races. 'course
lots of dumb luck was involved, but you can't imagine
how mightily
puffed up i became. here was the lowly apprentice , after 5 long
years of looking
at the master's stern, rounding that lovely orange
beacon with no one ahead.
then, alas, he won the next
two races, the second being crowned by
that classic moment when you're way ahead, 400 yards from the finish
line, and your opponent, with better boat speed, appears out of
nowhere and crosses ahead of you. what
a royal crapshoot this sport is.
anyway, fellow boaters, I needed to crow...and to hope, as we always
hope, that
another iceboating day will eventually appear.
friday the 13th skate sail on chickawalkie
January 13, 2006
very
nice skate sailing about 2-4PM on Chickawalkie. good hard ice,
with very occasional mushy patches, shallow
puddles, and ice fishing
holes. and perfect wind, about 6-8 knots. this pushed me as fast as
i'd
like to go skate sailing, with wobbly ankles and a large home-
brew sail. but this time something clicked!
i got away from the
vertical sail idea. Instead i held it overhead horizontally, and
pulled
one side down for power. this position, so beautifully
balanced, was like hitchhiking on the wing
of a friendly bird.
swooping back and forth the half mile reach across the lake in the
southerly
wind, each cycle required 'just one more', until finally i
dismantled the sail for the last time: this is too much
fun not to
buy the right gear! jory
PS i wonder if one could see those fishing holes under tonight's full
moon?
white knuckling on chickie
January 17, 200
The strong winds of these past days were predicted
to die in the
course of today, Tuesday, so I arrived with all the gear at 8AM,
determined to get a good
sail before it could pooch. Rain is
predicted for tomorrow, and there's nothing better than iceboating
with bad weather ahead. like getting the last seat in the theater.
the western sun was still behind the hill,
putting half the lake in
shadow as i tentatively stepped onto shiny orange-peel ice. I had
expected
styrofoam of the worst order, given the 'grade inflation'
which the promoters of our two local lakes are competitively
prone
to, but this ice looked rough, but invitingly fast.
I timed myself, setting up the boat, thinking about
efficiency
throughout: 15 minutes. not bad at all. I have been getting envious
of the
quicker set-up with skate sailing, but 15 minutes surprised me.
As I sailed south in the variable NW wind, trying to remember
Chickie's blasts and dead spots for that wind direction, I kept the
speed slow as i checked the healing of the
many drain holes.
Gradually the ice got rougher and was soon joined by frozen and
unfrozen 1-2 inch
drifts. The gusty wind strengthened, and a quick
hand on the sheet was soon necessary. the
wind chill, at 10 degrees
F was brutal.
sailing back to the beach, Lloyd was now ready, and with added
gloves, i helped put out racing marks. This has become a ritual of
late, and i do enjoy it.
Like an exercise wheel for a hamster,
those marks seem to channelize our efforts and turbocharge age-
weakened
adrenalin.
by now the wind had increased further and rounding the upwind mark,
just off Lloyd's beach, sent one
reeling on broad reach hikes down
into the neverland of the increasingly crazy ice to the south.
But actually,
it was a great chance to learn the central tactic of
rounding the downwind mark: being first around the mark is
less
important than rounding it already having tacked, already hard on the
wind, and already at warp speed.
today,
if you tacked at the mark itself, you were immediately in
dire straights: sheeting in, boat refusing to grip on
the lousy ice,
wind whipping the boom back and forth, and the shore fast
approaching. It was so
much better to well overstand the mark, round
up gradually maintaining boat speed, and finally blasting by the
mark, gripping well , close hauled.
Finally, windburned lobster red, slaked mellow with adrenalin, and
with the other weekday iceboaters just arriving--Wardwell, Norton,
Withrow, and Eastman-- I headed home to work
on "Thrifty", my 100
MPG econo-car. ah, iceboating, it's never a repeat performance.
saturday
on great pond, Belgrade
January 21, 2006
Sometimes the wind and ice conditions have a quiet, almost subliminal
message. sort of like a persistent knock on the door in the midst of
a good dream. and the
message is: it takes a long time to build an
iceboat, and a short time to destroy one.
the conditions today were
a racy roulette game. you win, you lose,
and yet still have chips. but you know the double-zero
is somewhere
on that spinning wheel. somewhere on that vast lake is a drain hole
disguised as a
puddle with your name on it.
the wind was a zesty SW, and bright sun almost blinding, as we
sailed this
most beautiful body of frozen water. the ice was fast,
and you peered ahead thru the glare and spray
to try to x-ray the
puddles, which covered half the surface. who could possibly tell at
the
speeds we were going, what hazards might lie beneath?
So, by 2PM i counted my blessings to be back at the landing.
One
high point was trying to cross the rotting, partially-open
pressure ridge in the usual area of 'the gut'.
I was travelling
with Lloyd in the super DN, John Eastman in the Gambit, and my own
DN. long we
pondered which was the least doubtful place to cross.
our choice swamped 2 or the 3 boats, and required braving
the ice
edge and reaching down to retreive luckily only one submerged runner
on each crossing. We
wondered how Dave Fortier and the 6 racers
still racing would fare later in the day.
Lloyd arrived back shocked
by having roared across a 6" x 3' open
crack, which by dumb luck he happened to be perpendicular to and
moving
fast enough to sled over....
so, its maybe time to let things heal and harden. maybe skate-sail
at the
north end of megunticook, which Dickie reports as OK with
caution. you sure can see hazards better standing
up...
"snowbound slow-down"
January 24, 2006
skiing along the woodland trail
with every tree abloom with
snow
by even the slightest wind untouched
how this thrilled me year and year
as sleepy orange morning sun
day-glow
paints the highest tops.
this morning though, this wing-clipped bird
hops so sadly, sadly hops
remembering days
of mystic flight
when we swooped our trusted borrowed wings
cross endless plains of glorious ICE.
an iceboater
goes skating:
March 4, 2006
To: iceboaters
I'm a lousy iceskater, skating with lace-up hockey skates,
collapsible hiking poles, a helmet, and occasionally even knee and
elbow pads.
yet as a lover of ice,
I find that even with great ice, there are
three times when iceboating just doesn't work: you have a
short time
slot and don't want to set up an iceboat. there isn't the slightest
huff of wind.
or it's so bitter cold or wind-chilled that only
bodily movement will keep you happy.
So with advice from my
techno-menturs, I called 1-866-244-2570 and
talked to Jamie, an iceboater/skater in Norwich, VT. his web site
is
nordicskater.com. He recommended chinese knock-off nordic multi-
skates, 55
cm blade length, for $100 plus $10 shipping, which strap
to hiking boots. these skates,
which you wouldn't actually use with
hiking boots since more ankle support is needed, have a handy wider
platform
than the other choices. They are also almost as hard as the
scandinavian counterparts, being hardness 55 instead
of 57. Bam!
they arrived the next day!
I scoured the thrift shops and bought roller blades in the
right
shoe size and also thinsulite insulated liners which fit in them.
the original roller
blade liners do not anticipate cold. I sawed
thru the rivets, and, removing the roller blade truck, mounted
my new
skate blades.
then i tried them out, and came back and re-adjusted the position
of the
blades fore and aft, raised the heel a little, angled them to
compensate for my slightly splayed feet, and eurika!
skating moved
into overdrive! I used foam pipe insulation to snap over and protect
the blades.
you
immediately notice some changes: with 21 inches of blade, on
the recovery you have to lift the skate higher.
being closer to the
ice, there is less load on the ankles. they make a different sound.
But
there are three fantastic differences: the much greater length
and absence of rocker smoothes out rough ice.
the added length of
the runner gives you so much more confidence about falling forward or
back.
And the thinner blade cuts easily thru snow pack if it isn't
too thick.
I wish i could report that these skates
made a good skater out of
me. i'm still a stumble-bunny out there. but now the sport has
taken
on an added joy. maybe a good skatesail is next.
Heading out iceboating on Damiscotta lake this morning.
jory
hears the fat lady's bittersweet song...
March 10, 2006 1
Wind from the SSW 6 Knots. faintly
tempting... Dense fog, dimly
outlining the contours of Mullen's Bog, Megunticook ... walking thru
2 inches
of slush and snow across the lake's margin, passing 3 nasty
drain holes which weren't there yesterday.
then the slow sad de-
commisioning of a trusty iceboat.
I'll never forget this 2006 season . I sailed more days
than ever
before. there were times when we sheeted in and blasted the
straightways with the immortality
of young gods....and times when our
mortality so plainly brought us up short....
the boat heads to the snug warm
basement to be lovingly attended to.
i know I'm missing some iceboating out there. maybe some
'chercher
la glace' runs by car to the north and west. maybe our
beloved before-the-slush mornings on chicky.
but my instincts seem
clear...
there's a grace to ending the season in this morning's blurry fog.
feeling sorrow that there's not always another season...feeling
gratitude for what has been...feeling a quiet
enoughness...
P.S. soon we'll send out a date for the end-of-season get together..
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