iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Thursday. The travelers from Poland, Germany, the East Coast and Central Regions arrive on thursday to a cold windy day. Like 10deg F and 20 gusting to 30mph. Like true iceboaters they go out and give a very detailed ice report (they rated it as a 6-7). There's a few ice heaves going across the lake. It is black clear ice with a orange skin surface, and small drifts.

Friday. The locals and the rest of the gang arrive to more cold and windy conditions. I went out with my gps and video and recorded a max speed at the top mark of 63.5mph. After catching three potential spins, I call it a day. Friday was a pretty good day out there. Scared myself silly. The snow hits on friday night.

Saturday. A little snow over night and the lake was looking good, with soft powder drifts that where getting deep (like 3") but you could puff right thru them in the strong breaze. That area in Minnesota is like the Atacama Desert for snow.. very strange.. It was really cold and windy in the morning. Of course the opti's went out and then the DN's followed them onto the course at around 12:00 noon. We shared the race course, the opti's having set up a different shorter windward mark. This allowed the parents of the optis to race in the gold and silver fleet races and it also included the opti's in the dn racing and rotation. In fact because this was the opti champs, we went opti-gold-opti-silver-opti.. and the opti's did five races (2 or three before the DN's showed up). So the opti's got released after their five races and the DN's stayed out till we got our four races in each fleet in. It seemed like it was getting colder after 2:30pm. It was a bright sunny, clear, cold day and the sun was just right so that when you were accelerating on starboard to go around the top mark you couldn't see anything through the sail window because of the glare. That was a little disconcerting. Then on the last race when you went around the weather pin, and as the glare blinded you, P55 popped into view sitting just below the weather mark without any wheels on, both of his chocks had come unglued.

Sunday. More snow flurries and strong wind and less then 10 deg F greated the sailors on Sunday. The opti's were the first out again and after some heming-and-hawing we decided to not go across the crack to the bigger ice sheet, but to go out to the opti course and see how long the course could be. When we got out there, the opti's had started a race, but had to abandon the races for the day do the high winds/low temp/bigger drifts. We setup the longest course we could (not to long, 5/8 mile maybe). We had lost some numbers due to it being Sunday, low temps, high winds, annd low visibility. It turned out to be a top of the fleet shootout. The racing was crazing when you would go through a drift and get a face full of it. On the downwind you could get in a lane, but when you got it wrong you would puff through a big drift. We did 3 Gold Fleet races and 2 silver and called it a regatta (3 lap races).

We got in all the races in tough conditions with out our big toe (JD). Right after we all came into the pit, I looked out to a nice sunny lake, no blowing snow, the wind had slackened, and was it warming up a bit? the 2009 Great Western Challenge was over.

Thanks for all of those that made it this year. I was sorry not to see many of the regulars, but hopefully we'll see all those guys who couldn't make it at the regional regattas. I was happy to see all of the members of the loosely knit Minnesota Ice Sailing Association really pull together and step up to get the regatta done. Thanks Guys. Everyone have a save travels home and we'll see you at the regional events.

Results are up
http://iceboating.net/2008westernchallengeresults