iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

wow,

thanks to all the Minnesota iceboaters in who helped me get up to speed. With out their help it would have taken me ten years to get where I am now, if at all. It's really the best part about iceboating, racing around with your friends trying to figure out how to go faster. It's funny because I really like the solo part of the iceboating... but you really have to work in a master/apprentice/tuning partner team type way to get going and to figure out what is fast, and that was pretty great getting to know everybody, the enthusiasm is really infectious. In fact everybody involved in racing DN's have been very helpful with all the questions/problems that I've had.

This is my fourth year so I really wanted to step up and be competitive. I got some gear from Ron Sherry de Composite Concepts (aka:mr. world champion),So I'd like to thank him for making such great racing equipment, not everybody has the time and skill to make the DN custom go fast parts, and having a small sailing business is really a labor of love. That's what is so great about the DN class is that there isn't a big company driving the class, it's got a more Corinthian feel to it. I was feeling a little spoiled in the silver class with my gold fleet gear, but then i noticed that 2nd place finisher, by a tie, Chris Teal, 5285 (only 71 sail numbers between us) had a spanky fiberglass/balsa jeff kent racing machine, so i didn't feel so bad.

That brings up the competition in the silver class. It was great. It's like amateur vs professionals. The silver fleet has a great camaraderie, and we aren't as consistent so more sailors have a chance to move up. Depending, of course, on how everybody placed on that last race, all of the top four or five boats could have won the regatta at that point. I feel very fortunate to be the lucky skipper who pulled it off. As we all know it usually doesn't work that way.

Thanks to everybody who makes these regattas happen year after year.

think ice
jim mcdonagh
dnus5214