Lake Mendota Sunday, 5/6/05
Sunday morning Byron Tetzlaff (US-5251) and I setup our DNs on Lake Mendota at Tenney Park (on the south-east shore). After waiting around with the kite-sailors for an hour or so, we were rewarded by the wind gods around 11:00am. Initially it was just a zephyr and we could barely keep going, but the wind built pretty quickly from the south-west and we were able to sail around the southern part of the lake for most of the day. Initially I tired slush-runners, but by the time the wind came up and we were sailing, the surface snow was melted enough that the angles were mostly running under the surface, and I switched over to plates for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon, George Friou setup his Nite and got a short ride in the fading winds after sailing his kite in the morning.
We sailed west almost to Picnic Point and south to near the shore by the University. We didn't sail north past the regular SW->NE crack/heave that runs from Picnic Point over to Warner Bay (although I'd walked along it Saturday and found many places to cross). I'd estimate that we sailed on a two by one mile section of the SE part of the lake.
By the late afternoon the wind was fading along with the snow cover. By the time we went in around 3:30, most of the area we were sailing was covered in about two inches of standing water. There were some slushy drifts left, but they were only semi-solid and fading fast. Overnight Sunday to Monday we got some rain, which I'm sure helped eliminate the rest of the slush. The temps are predicted to drop steadily over the next couple of days, dropping below freezing sometime this evening. Unfortunately, winds are forecast to be in the teens all the time the temps are dropping. Hopefully we won't have a million frozen ripples like we did last spring.
Current plans are to sail again Wednesday afternoon to see how the surface refroze.
Cheers,
Geoff S.
DN US-5156
Random image
Who's new
- Rob Holman
- Egoes3
- Rob Evans
- fishandbee
- serdahl
- Gprw
- toast822
- arrtadho
- Jwnelson
- keukaflyer
Sailing report: Wed. 3/9/05
A number of DNs and Renegades went out on Mendota yesterday. Byron Tetzlaff (US-5251) sailed around the lake pretty extensively, and reports ice from "teeth-chattering" rough to glass-smooth. We did a few races south-west of Maple Bluff (north of where the GC courses were) on ice that was about average for the lake. The winds were in the mid-teens and I had no major problems keeping the boat under control going flat-out up and down-wind. It was tricky on the really rough patches, but not impossible.
It stated snowing early this morning, and we're on-track to get the forecast 2" before it stops. Hopefully some folks will get out sailing before the weekend to see how much of a problem the snow is.
Cheers,
Geoff S.
US-5156
Wed. sailing out of Warner Park
A few of us will be sailing out of Warner Park Wed.
This is the same launch as we used for the DN Gold Cup.
Early birds will be setting up in the AM; I'll hopefully be there before noon.
Cheers,
Geoff S.
sobering at-sign gmail.com
608/206/1558 cell
Map
Here's a map of Lake Mendota:
We were sailing in the area bounded to the north by the line between Picnic Point and Maple Bluff.
FWIW, more often we sail on the western or north-central sections of the lake (both of which have a much larger area than the relatively small section we kept to on Sunday).
Cheers,
Geoff S.