iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

La Crosse, Wisconsin
December 7 - 8, 2013

Congratulations to Mr Ron Sherry for a strong showing on Sunday in the light air. He came back to win the regatta and at the same time he had a great time getting his boys out on the ice for an epic father son weekend.

Silver Fleet went to our man in Madison, Dave Elsmo! I'm sure his enthusiasm for iceboating, and his role as college sailing coach, has really ignited the college iceboating scene around the four lakes area.

Thanks to everybody for coming together and getting the four races for each fleet in. They had to be run under tight time limits. Saturday we barely got the racing in before the sun went behind the bluffs. On Sunday we had to get started as early as possible as the wind was going light and the blizzard was fast approaching for the drive home. Thanks to everybody working as a team, we all had some nice racing.

Gold Fleet

Pos     Sail       Name                    R1     R2      R3      R4      Points
---     ----       ---------               ---    ---     ---     ---     ------
1       US 44      Ronald J Sherry         1      6       1       1       9
2       US 4691    John W Dennis           2      3       2       4       11
3       US 4824    Mark R Christensen      8      5       3       2       18
4       US 5224    James A Thieler         3      2       13      6       24
5       US 4487    Chad Atkins             5      1       8       10      24
6       US 4926    Steve Orlebeke          6      7       9       3       25
7       H  467     Dideric van Riemsdijk   4      10      4       11      29
8       US 5014    Mark L Isabell          9      4       5       18      36
9       US 4       Griffin Sherry          7      8       14      17      46
10      US 5432    Mike Bloom              16     21      6       7       50
11      S  713     Rickard Gustring        11     12      19      9       51
12      US 5469    Oliver Moore            24     13      11      5       53
13      US 5214    Jim McDonagh            17     11      10      22      60
14      KC 4536    Bob Crinion             14     19      16      12      61
15      US 4257    Jim C Gluek             DNS    9       17      8       62
16      US 602     Tom Meyer               20     16      12      16      64
17      US 4961    John P Davenport        13     18      15      19      65
18      US 4775    Eben M Whitcomb III     12     24      22      13      71
19      US 5298    Scott Brown             10     20      DNS     14      72
20      US 4811    Markham G Chatterton    DNS    14      7      DNS      77
21      KC 5514    John Curtis             15     23      23      20      81
22      US 2545    Michael P Derusha       23     22      20      21      86
23      US 5414    Wes Wilcox              18     17      DNS    DNS      91
24      US 5369    Mike Miller             DNS    DNS     21      15      92
25      US 5352    Daniel F. Hearn         21     15      DNS    DNS      92
26      US 3271    Mike Jankowski          22     25      18     DNS      93
27      US 2360    Pete Johns              19     DNS     DNS    DNS      103

Everybody had a pretty good day catching up with their iceboating friends and aligning runners. We all had plenty of time to get all those little maintenance items on the boat done.

Some participants were out on the ice at 8 am and got a few early morning puffs but everybody had to wait till after 3:00pm before we got in 2 Gold and 2 Silver races.

Just when a couple of skippers took their sails down, the wind came on and the team sprung into action. We got the marks moved, starting line set in record time and started cracking off races.

I added an image gallery for the regatta.

We had shifty wind blowing around 8 to 12 mph. The ice was really hard and fast.

It was really great to see all my friends from the all over the world. I'll bet the gang sailed two dozen races. I counted over 35 boats all lined up doing a scrub race! It's great to see this meeting of friends to enjoy what we love in an informal atmosphere.

JD's Skeeter sails at Dawn!

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..