us5214's blog

Heading home now, on the North Shore..

It was the ground hog day regatta. Friday we went out around 9:30 and waited till after 5:30pm.. then the light & variable breeze finally produced enough breeze out of the SW to set a line and a top mark. We started a race! You couldn't tell from the start line, but the breeze came in on the lake side. Many on the shore side starting line either noticed and tacked, or got barted.

We got in 3 gold and 3 silver today.... no wind till around 2:00pm. Right after the Thunder Bay Yacht Club came out to the pit area and delivered hot dogs to the fleet, the fleet did a 180 on the course and moved to the other end. The wind freshened up and the gold-silver-gold races were good. Plenty of pressure. About the time the second silver went down it was starting to lighten up. The third gold was at minimum wind and the top guy just got his lap in before the timelimit. The third silver for the day was light too.

leaving to go to the launch site. Bright Sunny morning and the flags are moving up on the hill.

Racing starts at 10:00am.

The Thunder Bay Yacht Club (TBYC), I think, is going to have a hotdog lunch out on the ice today. It should be a surprise for the athletes. They also worked really hard to find a member with a quad-wheeler, and it is going to be at the launch this morning. So the MVP goes to TBYC

Today was a mixed day.

We got our mini-qualifier in today. There was some wind in the morning and we got the qualifier in. By the time the line was reset, and scored the barts figured out, and then the gold fleet lined up.. the wind had died.

It came up later with a 90deg shift and the course was reset but then it died again.

At 4:09 the P.R.O abandoned the racing. Of course when I got into the launch the wind had come up and I dumped my gear and had to go back out.

We are heading down to the ice and opening ceremonies. It looks like there is some breeze up on the hill. I think we are going racing today! Light wind was forecast..

Word is we have about 60 boats. we are going with two fleets.

We got to the launch site today at 9:00am and a few of the competitors had already arrived. It was great to see everybody, and those that came thru sault ste. marie said the drive was great. There was also a full moon so it must have been nice.. even though it was long, and it sounds like you had to do a little fuel management.

Wow..

What a great day!

We went for a great ride today out on Thunder Bay, Lake Superior.

We got into Thunder Bay around Noon.
Sunny blue skies and a huge sheet of sailable ice greeted us.

We met up with my friend, Dale Shymko who had a map to the public launch site all ready for us. We got down there checked the ice, and there is miles and miles of it.. Dale had his DN on his truck and had been sailing all day yesterday.

Strange.. going over the top of Lake Superior only adds six hours to the drive time to Torch Lake, Mi.

We all had a great time on Spring Park Bay, Lake Minnetonka. There were about 20 some boats out for our scrub races. We had lighter breeze and very smooth ice with the flower petal, hoars frost on the surface of the lake. It was a nice sunny day, a bit warmer then you might have thought for all the talk of the cold weather, not a warm day, but it wasn't super cold.

The McDonagh Brothers Annual Holiday Party is tomorrow, Thursday night.

It's also a celebration of my brother, Jonathan's 50th Birthday.

See the new Silver Fleet World Champion Cup, donated by Leon before it has to go back to Europe.

Iceboaters are invited to come by to eat, drink and discuss where we are going to be sailing this weekend.

McDonagh Brothers
2205 California Street NE
suite 101
Minneapolis, Mn

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The regatta was finished this morning when we got out on the ice and it was a whiteout.. nice coating of snow all over so you couldn't see the hazard, not that that matter, because there wasn't any wind either..

So we are heading home and I guess that there might be some good local ice!!

done.

Today the fleet got out on the ice early and in light winds got in 5 gold & 5 silver races. Yesterday racing was called off because of the ice conditions/wind speed..

This morning, (Wednesday) we left Traverse City at around 8:30 to go see if we were just going to pick up our boats off the ice, or if it was going to be a rescue mission. Everyone else had already taken their boat off the ice.