On Thin Ice... Iceboating - Wisconsin style...

After the snow blizzard which welcomed us to Wisconsin last week some of the guys at Harken have been pestering Robbie to join them in their iceboating exploits. The lakes in Lake Country, Wisconsin, have started to freeze...!

The sport is legendary around these parts but as the Al Gore change in climatic conditions has meant the lakes are freezing with less frequency than is ideal, the number of opportunities to spend time on the lakes has been dwindling. It says a lot about this season's winter we've started to experience that they're sailing already!

A typical season is only a few weeks long, and there are years in which boaters hardly ever get a chance to take their boats out because of either poor ice conditions or heavy snow.

Ice boating takes a small narrow hull of varying lengths depending on the class, with a small outrigger either side, with a blade on each outrigger and one at the bow. You practically lie on your back lifting your head just enough to see out the front of the boat. Helmets are a must, not only to save your head from a tacking boom, but to protect you should you upend at 60mph plus! Not all the classes have brakes - you stop by sailing into the wind, and putting your spiked shoe onto the ice to slow you down - or at least, that's how I saw how it was happening!

I learnt the other night how the sport works: 80% of the time is spent in preparation, tweaking the equipment, talking with your mates about how to make the boat go faster, talking about which lake is almost ready and speculating on the weather, 15% of the time is spent getting to the perfectly conditioned lake (last week one of the guys drove to Fargo, MN 8 hours away!), 3% of the time is spent rigging the boat, and 2% of the time is spent sailing.

Last year at one weekend-long regatta they sailed for a total of 47 minutes! Mind you the smaller DN class (12 footers) can top speed at up to 60mph so at those speeds that's one hell of a buzz for 47 minutes!

In the chaos of our unpacked luggage (still pending places to put things!), we managed to pull out all our thermals and necessary layers. Nellie, thank you SO much for the hat - it was perfect!

Robbie had a blast and I think is probably hooked...thankfully the mileage in the Land Rover will probably mean he'll restrict himself to lakes within two hours radius of Milwaukee!

Check out a YouTube video featuring on the home page of this website to see what it's all about.
http://www.iceboat.org/