iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Karol Jablonski, P 36, After winning 7 DN World Championships on the ice, (2nd in four more) is he now a "has been"? ... Where has he been? We haven't seen him on the ice for a while... It seems he's been a bit distracted with another serious effort.

Karol is the helmsman on Desafio Espanol 2007,... Go win this for your hardwater buddies, and they're racing right now.

It would be really cool to see a Hardwater Sailor win the America's Cup... again! Buddy who?

With a Bye in Flight One, The team won their first Round Robin Race in the Luis Vuitton Cup in Valencia Spain Yesterday over +39 Challenge (whats with that name, +39? are they all old guys?... in reality, people tell me +39 is the telephone dialing code for Italy )

Last weekend was sailable up north of the Alexandria area, I walked on several lakes, and returned with dry feet, did not sail only because of family commitments.

No interest remains in pushing the edges of sanity on soft spring ice beyond the boundaries we've already set. November 23 to April 15th... snowed out two weekends, too cold to sail 2 weekends,

Thats a season... 21 frozen Weekends in Minnesota, less 4 frozen out... 17 Weeks of Sailing completed... on the ice, in Minnesota - Chalk up another season where NOBODY IN THE WORLD SAILS MORE THAN WE DO!

The Next Expected Boatable Ice ... in the World. July 1, 2007 Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego , Argentina! It's a bit of a drive from Fargo,ND, say about 10,000 miles, just for a Beagle Beer to wash away the road dust. ... but then again, easier than driving to Ireland... If we leave "right now" we'd be there about the time it freezes... Expect ice reports to be posted in Spanish, by the time we get there I'll know the language.

NOT SO SOON GIRLS,... DN 5404, uh, that be a new number, from the Hackensack/Walker neighborhood made a pretty optimistic assessment of his local lakes, and is contmplating a sail tomorrow......

I told him if he found something he thought was boatable, some guys were sure to come up & rip.

We've got a speed lab expiriment we'd like to run, really bad.

Tip o the helmet to "Chatterbox" 4811 for pushing the issue... darn were all busy these days...

$0.02... here's hopin for walker bay!

Bringing a Hawaiian Shirt to sail in!

Game on?

From a fishing report: 04/01/07 08:34 AM Otter Tail lake still covered with ice except where the river comes in. I've been up here since Friday afternoon and our rain gauge in now up to 4" since we got here.

Average Temp for the last 5 days has been 20F, -7C

Of course they got about 3-- 5" of snow on Tuesday, blown around pretty good, some has sublimed, some is still on the ice... less to the south more to the north...

Detroit is frozen but lots of snow covers.

Lake Minnewaska, 15 miles south of Alexandria is open. Lake Ida north of Alex is reported to have a couple holes visible.

This crap will all be purged from the site today. Don't bother with any more.

..the Icemaker calls from the road. "Good ice in Alex", is the main point of his 59 second, 10 cent call.

The forecast for Easter Sunday is looking very good. 34 degrees, N winds 8-11 mph. Stay tuned....

Adam
US 5366

It's that sad time of the year when we put our iceboats away for the season. Here's a few of the things to check and do prior to storage:
1. I put a thin coat of 30wt. motor oil on all my runner blades.
2. I take the battens out of my sails and make sure I store them on a flat surface.
3. I check the mast, plank, and boom for any problems and fix them now!! rather then
waiting for first snow next fall.
4. I store my plank on a flat surface and put a spacer under the center of the crown
so it doesn't flatten out over the summer. One year I had a plank loose 1/4" of

The lakes up north are still plenty thick, although access may require planks.

Several sailors have indicated interest in sailing perhaps in the Alexandria area on Sat or Sun.

We'll be checking the forecast this afternoon and making a call.

For a grand finale event there's a little short course experiment we'd like to see tested.

it's gonna be great

4695

Racing/Crusing DN For Sale

1978 vintage original design hull
Lovingly restored during 2006 season
Modern extreme rake rig
All hull hardware replaced with new Sarns, Harken, Ronstan, etc.
Single-arm steering
Wood stripper mast w. Staymaster forestay & Sarns #010 stay adjustors
Wood boom w. custom block adjustor plate
Sarns plate runners, freshly sharpened
2004 1-D “Full Power” sail – mint condition
Stiff 3-layer plank w. Sarns chocks
Wishbone style wood tiller
Tapered mainsheet

Excellent boat for club racing or recreational sailing.
Selling since have upgraded to wedge-style hull boat

We sailed lower Minnetonka today, hard fast rumbly ice in the AM softening through out the day. Cleaner ice up toward Big Island and up towards Excelsior, thicker crust down towards Wayzata and Brackett's point. Smoother Ice on Lower Lake than I found in Spring Park on Upper lake on Sun. where I broke my DN plank. That seemed bad until I lost the leeward runner of my Skeeter into a carp hole today and ripped the plank off. Check out the carnage in the broken gear section of images.

From 4695 and KA1....

SPB ice is hard, fast, a bit bumpy.

4 DNs are out ripping now. Lots of power-hikes.

Cloudy so it should remain hard all day.

Winds 13 to 20, forecast to moderate later in the afternoon.

Packing up now...

-Adam

Seven DN's sailed Spring Park Bay yesterday, the remaining snow was a bit sticky but was not a big deal.

Short course, Big gusts, generally just a giggle.

Boats remain set up with some sailing planned this week after work.

4695

Sailed the West side of Waconia today. Aprox 1/2" crust of snow/ice crud on top of hard ice. Temps were around 40 and sailing was surprisingly fast for this type of surface. Still some fishing hole mounds and rough areas around where ice houses were that you need to watch out for but was pretty good overall.

Maybe we can get the tech committee to rule on using thes bottle rockets when there is no wind or possibly allow each skipper one to be used at his discretion during a regatta??
This Guy Is nuts??
Check out this video
http://jet-man.com/playervideo.swf?video=jetman2007.flv

See ya next year
Dn1313

1. walked on spring park bay this afternoon, conditions, about 1" of corn snow/slush on top of hard snow ice... the sun has yet to hit the ice on the open sites. The ice is hard to shore.

Conclusion, if there's breeze we''ll probably be able to sail. Several DN's indicate they plan to set up ast spring park bay and sail tomorrow. Setting up ~10:00

2: I see the ice cops are looking for an iceboater. Check the blogs if your boat is "set up" today, somebody's looking for you. Jeez, the power of the internet! Tip of the helmet to Deputy Piper!

Spring time in Minnesota, tee shirt ice sailing!