iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Menominee, MI
Green Bay, Lake Michigan
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http://www.iceboat.org/images/06-07/niya/niya.htm

On Friday there was too much wind..
On Saturday there was a pretty fresh breeze as well and we got in 2 races per fleet, (DN, Renegade, Skeeter E, Skeeter A,B,D, Stern Steerers)

It was pretty crazy out there.. with some cracks in the ice, and we even abandoned the last race after Steve Orlebeke went into a working crack going upwind... that was it for the day..

Before the Stern Steerers got off their first race (they go last), there was a little incident in the pits... the duece got loose..

A-Scow Gps Action Reply

from tuesday night beer can races..
wind 340/12kts.

this is from m-100's second race.

15kts top speed..

this is a java applet from these guys..
http://users.info.unicaen.fr/~mathet/gpsar/

so of course you need a java plugin for your browser.

And i've got the gps logs and split up the six silver races..

my favorite thing is to click on the syncronized time and run the races against each other..

GPS Action Replay 2006 Centrals

check out the length of the course.. 600meters..

new olympic sport,
500meter short course
6 guys
10 times around
double elimination
top 3 guys move up.

Elk Lake, Mi

that was the scariest 'TEN' i've ever sailed.

We had to go across a couple of cracks on the scouting mission.. like always the guys from out of town are one of the first out sailing on the ice..

It is very new ice so there are some hazards and there isn't too much more ice then we need..

But only one guy got wet... but he brushed it off and was back out..

We had about 18 boats out and got in 6 or 8 races. The ice is very smooth and fast.. just watch out for the cracks.. and thin ice next to the cracks...

we only had 5 to 10mph of wind and we were ripping around the course.

13:30 michigian time
Whitebirch Lodge

We tried to stop at Sunny's in Torch Lake for an omelette but they were closed till april... we had to settle for lunch at the fish stand in elk rapids.

Change in launch area. We are now launching out of the Whitebirch Lodge.

The ice looks great. If it's not a 'TEN' then I'm not sure what a ten is.

The ice hasn't been frozen very long and you can see straight through the ice to the bottom of the lake in up to 15' of water. Is kindof spooky at first. There is around 3" to 4" of ice. There are a couple of pressure ridges that might be a bit tricky to get across out to the main ice sheet.

44.796435N
88.851167W

wi hwy 29
10 miles west of shawano, wi

enroute to central regionals
expectations are high again.

we are expecting black ice on south elk, or maybe even north elk will come through with some very fresh ice.

the big white van had to depart to Miami for the Mumm30 event so we are in the jeep.

Clear skies with orion over are shoulder and a waxing cresent (2 days since new).

no snow events in the forecast..
good temps..

and good luck to ron, matt & john who left the fort for their dreams of world championships ..

now listening to: The Wanderers - Circles Of Time

8:45am hilton garden, staging area
The whole minnesota gang of ice checkers, those that couldn't make the regatta take one for the team and are out early am. down on the ice by 8:45am. They reported back with an A OK.

9:00am hotel lobby, skippers meeting
rerolling.. we are moving to PEPIN!
launch area
town of pepin, wi

re-registratin
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Super 8 Motel
Redwing, MN

racing tomorrow in pepin

we are packing up..

9:30am skippers meeting..
delay till noon while the ice checkers go down to the usual wayside launch, and another group is going to the north end of the lake (fireroad 8)
to check for access for trailers and ice conditions.

the flags are flying pretty good... and it's not raining.. so it looks like a nice day for boating.. providing the ice checks out..

we had a front row seat to the action in the parking lot this morning. A van from one of the competitors sprung a leak in the gas tank.. so whole oshkosh fire department and hazmat team showed up. then they towed the car away.

so we arrived at the hilton garden in oshkosh around 10:15pm friday.. to this notice....

at the hotel bar later that night a high ranking official was overheard saying.... "we got a week"

went out to the launch site..
four went out two came back....

robby called.. we told him it was great come on down...

there is actually a really nice sheet of ice out there so hopefully we'll get something off...

it's now midnight and the rain has let up..

9:30am skippers meeting in the hotel lobby..

minneapolis, mn to oshkosh, wi
Fri Jan 27 2006

we arrived at the old hilton garden in oshkosh, right next to the oshkosh airport at around 10:30pm after a short 5.5hrs from minneapolis.. although minneapolis/stpaul/I94 at 5:00pm isn't much fun...

Expectations are still high as we haven't seen the ice yet.. also i always have expectations of doing good in the regatta and still have that high expectation.. that usually goes away after the first day

The roads where completely dry on the way here so that's a good sign.. always signs... there was one about the ice at checkin too.. more on that later

Ice Safari
Elk Lake, Mi
Feb 11th, 2005

It's our second trip to northern Michigan in 5 days. First was the Central Region and then in the same place the next weekend it was the North American Championship. Next year it would be nice to go on a month long ice safari.. none of that pesky four days of work between iceboating and driving.

The 2005 North Americans was a great regatta. We had great ice and wind all weekend. And friday was a great day as well.

We left minneapolis on thursday night at 8:30pm. Since this was the second time we drove to michigian, and we didn't have a dog with us, (he was with us when we went to the Centrals the previous weekend) we managed to shave some time off and got to sunny's cafe (torch lake, mi) at 7:10am for their tasty omelets.

I had a pretty cool time. I got seventh in the Silver fleet and so I got some hardware and something to build on.

My brother was in key west with his mumm 30, champosa, for the exact same time and came back with a sixth.. and that's pretty cool too. Of course down in key west, it's gold fleet all the time..

Iceboat regattas are hard because when you first get to the launch site and setup you are all amp'd to go racing.. but first you always have to pay some dues.. It's tough to hold a iceboating regatta at a certain time.. I guess they used to reschedule to wait for the good ice, but nobody liked that either..

I updated the regatta photo galleries.

sorted the regatta dates out, and put the gear pictures i took at the 2002 NA millacs in a proper folder. the regatta gallery is filling out nicely, thanks to geoffs .

the site doesn't have 2003 north americans pictures. so anybody with a couple of 2003 north american pictures.... anybody...?

I also uploaded some 2004 nite national pictures from lake christina, mn that were sent to me.

I uploaded the coot pictures from ashby, minnesota.. ;-)

that's it for now..

and as to my dismall performance in the western regional...
why does it take me 6 races to pull my head out of my a**?

Now we are getting spammers... posting to our forums... arrgh..

I'll have to get going on the new 4.5 version and the anti-spammer stuff.. which can't possible work very well..

Or I could allow postings by registered users only. that's a little extreme..

hmmm.. maybe a firewall rule to block ip's from spammers.. or something more aggressive...

Looks like the spam post came from india.. I could block all of india.. but then I'd be shutting off the access for the all the iceboaters in india..

I've heard of this, but now i've got to actually deal with it..

ps.

I'm going to lake christina this saturday.. should be a hoot at the coot..

in the gear:shop photo gallery..

the ones named img_****
http://iceboating.net/image/tid/21

I'll let the pictures do the talking and post something later..

-jim