iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

That was a great regatta. Day 3 and no sailing, too windy, except for the DN's sailing down to the starting area.. to find out that it was blowing over 30mph and racing was called off. There were five of us that ventured out. I tried to go upwind in some sort of racing trim, but quickly eased out and throttled off.. JD tried and got a gust that lifted the boat off the ice..

So racing was done, and the awards ceremony was done in the 30mph winds with all our DN friends gathered around and making a good wind block.

JD First, steve0 Second, Davenport Third..

Another great day on Green Bay!

Two more races for all four fleets. Super interesting skitter races with Jay and Dan having a great battle.

Sunny and fair winds.

After the second DN race I got to trim the Haywire and had a great race

3:00pm Friday
Green Bay, Lake Michigian
City of Green Bay, WI

Happy to report, after the second try the Northwestern Regatta had a great first day. Two races were raced in all four fleets.

Nice long course with a medium breeze. Snow flurries on the ice.. with a spots of older, stickier drifts, and no hazards that I saw.

Fleets consisted of the DN, Renegade, Skeeter, and Stern Steerers. We all raced on one long course and the starting area was close to the launch area, so that made it nice if you wanted to come in and change equipment, or have a snack.

Well, I had a great regatta!

Congratulations to Ron Sherry for his win, getting five firsts and throwing out a 4th.. great job, he was really fast!

That was the best I have ever done at our season opener, a fifth overall. Almost all top ten finishes (one eleventh). I even picked up a third on the first race. That felt pretty cool.

The Minnesota crew also did a great job with Mark C (the Doctor) winning the tie on Sunday over a very fast Steve O from team PISS. Tom Verburgt and Mike Miller had a good battle going for the Silver fleet with Tom besting Mike.

Derusha (us2525) opened up his shop to the tired and wayward iceboaters and the champions of the sport..

He has a great shop with so many great Iceboats in it.. to many to mention, but the main gal is "The Deb". It has a new hull that is as big as The Duce. It looks great with the new stainless.

He also has a really nice Cub.. That actually runs and you can take it out for a spin... And I did..

I un-coupled the brakes so that you could brake each wheel independently and took it out for a spin..

Well that sucks.

We couldn't find a place to hold the 2011 North American Championship. We looked up at little bay de nac in northern green bay, we looked half-way down in cedar river... JD and Tommy walked (because it was blowing so hard) way out on the ice.. and fell down and hit their heads.. but we didn't find any sailable ice.

It was all covered in snow.. sometimes it looked promising with 1-2" of fluffy snow and then there would be more hard drifts that would stop a boat.

Regatta Done.

Because of sticky snow and high winds with impending blizzard to hit at noon. The regatta has been completed.

I posted some pictures in the image gallery.

I made my goal. I had a 17 ranking going into the regatta, and I got 17th position. The 17th was at last years NA Thunder Bay regatta, so getting 17 in the worlds is great.

Now for the North American Championship...

What a day..

five races in for the gold, 4 in silver and bronze.

In the last gold fleet race the wind was blowing the snow off the lake it was really great.

have to take the contacts out now.. more later..

and JD has pictures to upload..

and Hey, I got an 8th in the third race!

and JD won two races.

The ice was okay, the course length was good today. There was moderate to light winds throughout the day. The Tee runner body was just hitting the deeper drifts, but there was a little bit of snow over the entire lake, so all of the different runners made an appearance throughout the fleet.

I ran on my 30" Tee's.. the lightest runner I had, and the only ones in the fleet, and just after the start of the first gold race at around 3:40 or something.. the wind completely shut off and my boat wasn't going..

Peru, IL

turns out 300+ miles south and it's pretty warm.. 20 degrees seems really nice..

There was some dense fog on the last 20 miles..

tomorrow out on the ice early.. and sail sail sail before the next storm on tuesday...

"and we're going to do what they say can't be done.."
- smokey and the bandit

less then 100 miles to go to Peru, Illinois.

Expectations have been reset.. and now it looks like a blustery regatta..

early morning checkin 8:00 - 10:00am at hotel.. then opening ceremonies at 11:00 then racing at 1:00pm.

I also heard there might be early (late-night) check-in at the hotel this evening.. to help with the morning rush hour.

we are out at the launch site and the finish-canadian-us ice checker team, (L37, KC5449, US60) are out blasting through snow drifts.. it looks really fun.. (sort of jealous)..

but I'm not sure if it's too race-able

It was great to see everybody and to catch up, but when we came out there was quite a bit of snow..

We are all going to be excited to head up to the racing area 30 miles north in the mornng and see how much snow is on the racing area.

we arrived and are heading to the bar... we got in about 40min before the snow.

THINK ICE