iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

I just finished another boat and thought I'd share a couple of hints with inexperienced builders. I use West epoxy although there are other good ones out there. One of the first things I found out about epoxy is that it's a bear to sand. I have never found anything that plugs up sand paper faster then epoxy. I found an easy solution to this problem, use wet dry sandpaper,wet. You can use a piece of paper till it wears out. I coat most all of the interior surfaces with epoxy. To make the epoxy flow better and to save weight, I cut the mixed epoxy about 25% with acetone (make sure you wear a respirator when you do this).

I grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I now live in Alabama.

Does anyone teach this skill?

Does anyone lease an ice-boat after some instruction?

Appreciate any ideas.

Michael

This webpage has been updated with a section showing runner alignment using both the beam and laser techniques.

http://www.carbondragon.us/iceboat/runner_align.htm

/Adam

I hear sailors complaining that when the heat is on in a race they sometimes have trouble remembering if they are on port or starboard. I have an easy cure for the problem. I have a 3 ft. strip of green tape on the right side of my boom and an orange strip on the left side. The tape is always in view and it keeps me aware of the tack I'm on. I hope the helps.

A new guy in our sailing group ran his borrowed DN into open water last Monday. He had been thouroughly cautioned regarding "the east side of the lake". This particular lake has a problem freezing at the east end.
In spite of all the warnings he sailed away from the group over to the dreaded east end.
Moral of the story?
Keep an eye on new people and reckless new people.
Fortunately the air temp was 50F and the water was only waist deep.
One more comment:
I had left the rescue line in my truck. Had to sail back to get it.

Safe sailing to all, especially this weird/warm winter.

Chip

Hi!

There have been some very nice pictures on ice surfers on this site but not really how you made the steering.

I have sailed some ice surfers based on a skate board (long board) concept with four runners. The foot steering on those is a little bit to nervous in high speed though.

By the way, did you ever log your speed with gps? It would be interesting to know your all time high with the three runner surfer.

Surf on,
Per.

Hi All,
Are there any Northwest Ia. Iceboaters out
there.... there must be some!!!
Anyone iceboat on Lake Okoboji or Big Spirit??!!
Regards, ejag

Any of you guys have a simple system for putting a DN on the roof of a car? I have a Ford minivan with a factory roof rack that should take the load fine, just that it doesn't raise the boat high enough above the roof. MikeMc

Several of us had a discussion about starting up and also lite air sailing. We all agreed that over sheeting is a common problem especially among lesser experienced sailors. A sail is an airfoil just like an airplane wing and an airfoil at too great an angle of attack will stall (like when you're oversheeted). When a wing stalls, it losses lift and it falls out of the sky. A stalled sail has very little power. Any airfoil starts stalling from it's trailing edge and the stall moves forward until the entire foil is stalled. What does this mean to us? It means that when you're starting or sailing in lite air, you have to pay attention to the trailing edge of your sail. In practice it means you need tell

A fellow ice boater in Montana just reported another sighting of the culprit lurking by that beat-up old Skeeter with a new paint-job. This Yeti really gets around; at least he did in his youth. I believe this is the only picture in existence where his face is not covered. He looks very inbred but seems pretty happy about something. Is there some news he is keeping from us?

Picture found in People section!

The Minnesota Ice Boat association has hired a private investigator (CIA) to find out if any of its members are involved in any “Unauthorized” Ice Boat projects that the Minnesota Ice Boat Association has not sanctioned. It has come to our attention that there are many “Underground” ice boat workshops through out the state that have not been authorized by the Minnesota Ice Boating Association Task Force.

We are looking for help in identifying the gentleman holding the 2x4 across his face who is “Happily” standing in front of his newly reconstructed Skeeter.

Hi everyone,

My name is Adam and I recently moved to the Twin Cities after an overseas stint in Sweden. While overseas I built two icesurfers and an Isabella. Both were a lot of fun but the season was very short where I was.

Two weeks ago I bought a DN iceboat. I plan to attend the first regatta on Dec. 3. Any and all tips are appreciated!

See you on the ice!
Adam K.

PS - can someone clean up these forums and filter out all the spam? Very annoying....

Passing along a note posted by: Paul Goodwin on August 16, 2005 at 12:24:13:

I have just learned that Skip Boston, DN US 150, passed away
last night.

This is a great loss to the DN class and iceboating in general,
as Skip has been a stronghold in the DN and other classes of
iceboat over the years.

Skip was piloting a DN from the start of the class, and has been
DN North American Champion three times ('57, '59, '64). The Boston
family business (sailmaking) has been rooted in iceboating
since before the DN was conceived, having been started by Skip's
father Howard who was also an avid iceboater. As well as making

We set up Snowbird III yesterday for the first time since we purchased it. You can find the photos here

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/J14/

There to help were Art Teutsch, Louise Teutsch, Henry Schantz, Jay Canter, Dominic Conti, Rick Conrad and Skip Stauber. Of course Kelly and myself were there.
The people driving by must have thought we were crazy.
It went extremely well....no problems. Can't wait until we can set it up on the ice. We may have to dress warmer, but at least it won't be rainy.
Jack

Have you ever thought of building an ice boat from scratch, including the design? Well here it is, three years in the making and finally on the work bench. What started out to be a light weight one seat Nite, evolved into a new design, ultra light, C-Skeeter. Many thanks go out to Bob Gray for his countless hours of designing and meticulous planning, and to Skip Stauber and Jack Jacobs for there knowledge and input.

Hopefully everything will go as planned and the as yet un-named GX-1 will have its maiden voyage at the North Westerns in early December, or locally if we have early ice in the Traverse City (MI) area.