iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Hey 4695 (Mark Keifer),
How does lake christina look? Are we going to have a regatta in 4 weeks??

Get those coots off the lake and especially the coot rider off the back of that poor coot...............

I drove past the legendary Milepost 8 on Lake Christina, Ashby, MN this morning.

Conditions: 45 degrees F, calm winds.

Observations:

The lake is open water. No signs of a freeze in the immediate forecast.

There were about a million, perhaps 1.5 million coots sitting on the water. It certainly explains the consistency of the lake bottom, (for those of us who've made water landings there, we already knew) :)

Details as things cool down

It's gonna be great!

4695

...for duck hunters...

http://www.startribune.com/stories/531/5651661.html

Apparently, the rotenone-induced fish-kill in 2003 has returned the lake to "gin clarity" with increased vegetation. Duck hunters are predicting an increase in waterfowl.

Cheers,

Geoff S.
US-5156

The ice cometh!!!

Think Ice

4695

Folks,

The time is quickly approaching and we will soon need to retire our ice yachts to their summer location.

The real question is when will the ice actually go out on Lake Minnetonka? Here is a link that has all the dates listed and rules for official iceout

http://www.freshwater.org/iceout.html

My vote is April 22nd @ 9:30 am.

What is your guess???

Maybe our great Webmaster could put up a function where users could log their guesstimate?

Prizes,,, none but bragging rights till the ice reforms and we all meet again on the ice.

Thanks,
Will

2 DN'ers sailed buffalo on Saturday in continually building breeze, the lake gave up 6 hours of spectacular sailing.

4 DN's sailed Sunday, 12 races sailed in continually building breeze. Until the wind was too much, and ice a bit too soft, it got pretty out of control by about 2:00. Hee Yaa!

This was truely the tightest racing of the season, with most races seeing the top three boats finish within 5-6 seconds. Picking the laylines right and keeping the boat moving in the moderately sticky conditions were the keys to winning.

Western Regional Champion 4811 Markham Chatterton won the first 2 on inserts, It was pretty amazing to watched them go away, in favor of angles in race three, as he backed out of the race on the first beat.

did anyone sail saturday? ice conditions in Ashby area? let out a shout if there's a last hurrah anywhere! thanks. dn 904

We have had some good sailing the last two days. This morning and early afternoon the winds were 9-13 mph , but the snow was crispy so I only sailed for about 1/2 hr. A couple of the local club boats had started to set-up, by then the wind was a little less. With the crispy snow sailing was tough. We went to lunch waiting for the temps to rise. When we returned the snow was MUCH softer, but so were the winds. None of the 10 minute wind averages from 1pm to 5pm went over 7 mph. The wind meter ranged from 2-8 mph...So even though the snow was fine to sail the wind wasn't cooperating. I got a couple short rides in the skeeter after lunch, but the winds were mainly ranging from 3-5 mph. You couldn't hardly tell which direction the wind was coming from some of the time it was so light. The wind was considerably higher right against shore, but that doesn't do us any good it just tricks us into going out.

I'm trying to decide if/where there might be some sailing this weekend. Does Buffalo Lake look likely?

Cheers,

Geoff S.

I drove past Buffalo this morning (saturday) & drove on the ice at Sturges Park, Buffalo MN. They recieved no snow from yesterday's event. The fields are black, well brown.

The lake appears to be ~ 75% clear of snow, with the balance ~ 1/2 inch drifts.

There is a road that runs from the park to the fishing village in mid lake, there should be ample room south of the road for a course. (that would be the south side of the lake)

US 602 was suggesting he'd get a course set up for tomorrow

think ice

4695

5 DN's sailed Sunday on the main lake, 10 - 15 mph breeze, ice is 24" thick and moderately rumbly. A pretty good sailing area was laid out six two lap tests showed Tom Meyer US 602 had the speed Sunday with 4 bullets.

Conditions look favorable for sailing this weekend, and who knows maybe something a bit more formal will materialize.

Think ice

Found some decent ice at Clear Lake in Waseca on Friday. I'd guess the the lake to be about a mile square. Wind gusts of 40MPH with a ground blizzard is just about right. The turns would have thrown me out of the boat (iceflyer) without the seat belt. Splayed out a runner chock and ripped up one of the sails. Life is good.

Wally Hall (Iceflyer) & myself (Nite) had a great day of getting our rear ends kicked from no wind to gusts in the neighborhood of 30-40 mph on a lake that is 40 acres in size. Ice boating in Colorado this season with extremely shifty winds but we have to take what we can get lately. Was great to get out as we put on a show for everyone driving on I-70. Checked Dillon on the way home to Vail & if it blows like it did today Dillon will be the ticket tomorrow. Sail fast Konr

It sure ain't as nice as Wednesday...

I'm going to setup at the Allen / Pratt location in Cottagewood this afternoon and check out the main lake on Mtka. I have preliminary reports that conditions aren't bad. After I sail around I'll let everyone know what it's like. We could have a great day of sailing tomorrow on Mtka.

Later,
Will