iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Walt's update today on Lake Charlevoix:

A long time ago I read someplace, or I heard someplace, that back in
the horse & buggy days, before either the steam or internal
combustion conveyance, men had the theory that if a man were to
travel faster than 30 miles an hour, they would disintegrate.

I now believe that they were wrong on the number, but that their
theory just might have some validity. I do not know what the
disintegration number is, but I fear that I came very close to it
today on my little Lockley Skimmer.

The ice on Lake Charlevoix was a little funny. The smooth ice we had
known for the last two days had changed. It now looked like it had
the hives. It was made up of tight little rolling bumps. Not rough to
ride on, I think it might have been faster because of less friction
between the skates and the ice. Other than that the lake was pocked
with puddles. The puddles were not water, they were slush covered
with a thin coat of ice. The runners would break through, and ice
chips and a bit of the slush would fly into the goggles and face, but
not bad enough to bother much. The puddles were all sizes, from the
size of the top of a 55 gallon barrel to a big oval maybe fifteen by
twenty feet. It was fun trying to steer between them, but it was
impossible to miss many. There was a bit of a hesitation when you hit
one, but not much as long as you were moving 40 mph.

The wind started to drop a little after 4:00 PM, it had been another
great day, wish you all had been here.

Walt Ward