iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

All in, A RECORD 61 DNers launched the 2007 North American DN Season in Minnesota... and for the second time in event history, with a turn perhaps only iceboaters would understand...have risen before dawn, broken camp and moved 50 people and boats 180 miles south to better ice and forecast; all in less than 12 hours, half way thru the event.

Legends of Iceboating were abundant in both boat parks, and on the starting lines, 6 or so past Continental or World Champions, Standing tall among them 5 time former world champion Jan Gougeon from Bay City MI, and Jeff Kent, setting the driving record at 1750 miles one way! Leading in everything but the 4th race, Current World Champion, and long time supporter of the Great Western Challeng Regatta Ron Sherry,

Our "foreign" iceboaters, Bernd, Jorg, Christian, Andreas, Mathias, Lesze, and Girly Mike remind us by their enthusiasm fo r the sport and the great distances they travel, what a gift early ice is for the sport.

After a truely Great day on the ice Friday, the dusting of snow that fell on friday, combined with a brisk day(maybe it got to 10 F for a few minutes) the 20-30 mph breeze piled up drifts over 1 foot in several places on the course.

The biggest challenge in the 6 races run was the slush under the drifts which didn't seem to slow the boats, but did consistently freeze on contact with the goggles, leaving many pilots blind on the course at 50+ MPH, and making frostbite a serious concern.

The guys from Kattack.com installed GPS devices on many gold and silver fleet boats allowing the fleet to replay the races back at HQ Saturday night. These races should be available on Kattack in a couple days. Thanks to Kattack for their involvement in Iceboating and the Great DN Western Challenge Regatta.

I heard several describe saturday's sail as spiritual, (there's no athiests in foxholes),20-30 mph, 50+ mph sustained downwind speed, 1 foot "pretty soft" drifts, iced goggles, big spin outs, perfect frostbite conditions all in the pie and remarkably no serious damage to sailors or equipment was reported. Rookie KA 1 had some words to say about the speed/cold.. they just don't translate from Australian to American English in polite company... never heard it described that way, you'll have to ask him.

2006 The Great Western Challenge Regatta > Part 1

December 2 - 3, 2006

Gold fleet roster
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1 US 3 GROGAN, JIM (S)
2 US 44 SHERRY, RON
3 US 45 SHERRY, WENDELL (M)
4 G 55 SEEGERS, ANDREAS
5 G 107 ZEIGER, BERND
6 US 379 HARPER, JOHN (S)
7 US 445 CAVE, BOB (S)
8 G 551 SEEGERS, CHRISTIAN (S)
9 G 737 BOHN, JOERG
10 G 900 GROTHUES-SPORK, MATTHIAS
11 US 1183 GOUGEON, JAN (M)
12 US 3283 WILLIAMS, J.BRUCE (M)
13 US 3535 KENT, JEFFREY
14 US 3662 SMITH, GREG (S)
15 US 4000 JOHNSON, RANDY (S)
16 US 4137 SMITH, JR., KEN (S)
17 US 4266 BUCHBINDER, BILL (S)
18 US 4691 DENNIS, JOHN
19 US 4695 KIEFER, MARK (M)
20 US 4915 COOK, ROBERT (S)
21 US 4926 ORLEBEKE, STEVE
22 US 4961 DAVENPORT, JOHN
23 US 4975 EVANS, ROBERT
24 US 5053 REIS, GEORGE (S)
25 US 5144 REHE, MICHAEL (J)
26 US 5214 MCDONAGH, JIM

2006 The Great Western Challenge Regatta Part 1

December 2 - 3, 2006

Silver fleet roster
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1 KA 1 Shepherd, Mike
2 US 50 FOSTER, WILL
3 P 71 ZIOLKOWSKI, LESZEK (S)
4 US 244 ERWIN, TERRY (S)
5 US 824 KENNEDY, STEVE
6 US 1277 BOWMAN, HAL (M)
7 US 1313 RAST, ROBERT (S)
8 US 4654 GRAY, ROBERT (M)
9 US 4811 CHATTERTON, MARKHAM
10 US 4824 Foster, Andy
11 US 4868 RICHARDS, JULIE (S)
12 US 4882 WOLLAM, RICHARD (S)
13 US 4889 AUSTIN, TOM
14 US 5050 Oelschlager, Tim
15 US 5156 SOBERING, JEFF
16 US 5290 Hutner, Patrick
17 US 5298 Brown, Scott
18 US 5355 Rickman, Tom
19 US 5362 Rosenthal, Jim
20 US 5366 Koller, Adam
21 US 5369 Miller, Mike