A late call came through on Friday announcing sailable ice on Elk Lake, how could I have not heard about this one!!! Rumor had it the ice was 5"- 6" thick with 40% snow cover of 1/2" or less!! After a bunch of phone calls to get the word out, preparations began for the road trip. I hadn't even looked at any iceboat equipment yet, so the dust was flying out in the shop as the boat came down out of the rafters, and runners were located from all corners.
Naturally, I hadn't touched my runners from the last days of sailing in the spring, and a quick inspection revealed some work would be required before I could tell Jan Gougeon "I brought my best shit" :-) I started getting ready at 9:30pm Friday, and was packed up and ready to go right on schedule at 4:30am Saturday morning.
The drive to Elk was around 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, with steady snowfall and only one lane open on I-75. The only good thing was that there was little traffic before the sun came up, and the pace was fairly steady all the way. Debbie and I arrived at the White Birch Lodge around 9:30am, and saw a beautiful sight - J14's being assembled and DN's flying in the bay. I started putting equipment on the ice, and socialized with Jack Jacobs and the Bay City Swamp Rats. The wind was fairly brisk, and the boats were smoking across the horizon.
I hadn't even gotten my mast up when the first of several mishaps occurred, Dominic sailed Frosty Paws (a J14) into a hole at a seam between new and old plates of ice. The boat was quite far out in the bay, but you could tell something was wrong because the tail of the boat was sticking up in the air! The bow had gone down the hole, ripping the spring-board off and splitting the hullsides. Luckily, Dominic was uninjured except for a fat lip.
Shortly after getting Dominic back to shore, a DN found another hole along the same seam. Randy Kline was only 25 feet from the hole with cones in hand, getting ready to mark the hole when the accident occured. George (a local sailor), oblivious to the danger, sailed straight into the hole at full speed. The boat came to an immediate stop, and George broke his ankle on the #4 bulkhead before contacting the mast, breaking his nose and cheekbone.
This round of accidents set the stage for some serious inspection of the lake, and a course location was found with safe ice. A course was set up, and a full day of fantastic scrub races got under way. After a few races, John Harper was sailing to weather in his brand new Composite Concepts boat, when he and another sailor ran into each other. The other boat was not racing at the time, but was crossing the course to return to the launch area. The weather mark had been placed quite close to the launch, which was great for spectating, but led to non-racing boats sailing near the racers.
A couple of things could probably be learned from these experiences. Of primary importance, and can't be repeated often enough, is to CHECK OUT THE ICE THOUROUGHLY BEFORE SAILING. The checkout can be done from a DN, but extreme caution must be excercised. The ice had been sailed the day before, and the pan of old ice was thick and stable. Sailors arriving at the site assumed the whole lake was good, and just started blasting all over the place, leading to two avoidable accidents.
Another lesson to be learned is that there can be problems when a group of sailors are racing in the same location as recreational sailors. The two groups are sailing under different rules, which can lead to confusion and potentially collision. The NIA recommends that ALL sailors be encouraged to participate in racing. It can be helpful to divide into multiple fleets, even within a small group of sailors. When all sailors are in one fleet, it can be depressing for a "B" or "C" fleeter to get hammered by the "A" fleet. This is particularly true when sailors of the caliber of Jan and Meade Gougeon (and others) show up. A separate "B" fleet encourages participation and level competion.
Bob Struble was Scrub King for Saturday, and devastated the rest of the fleet. Jan and Meade Gougeon, Bruce Williams, and myself had to settle for tight competition further back in the pack. Other sailors showed us that boatspeed is high across the fleet, where one little mistake - a bad tack, slow start, or dribbling around the weather mark - can lead to half the fleet sailing by. The sailing Saturday was fantastic, with 15-20 mph winds providing thrills and chills. Unfortunately, Debbie Goodwin spent the day carting a wounded sailor around for repair, so no finishes were recorded.
On Sunday the wind was non-existent in the morning, and the usual crowd of fitness buffs were seen pushing their boats all over the lake. By noon, it appeared the day was going to be a washout, so several of the out-of-towners packed it up and left for home. Shortly after 1 o'clock, the wind started to pick up, and Meade knocked on my van window to wake me from my lunch-time nap. By the time I had my sail up and sailing gear on, the wind was up to hiking velocity and the races had begun.
I grabbed Debbie and headed for the course. The wind started out light, and built steadily all day, which really separated the masters from the wannabees. Jan and Meade were duking it out, and they took all of the 1st place finishes for the day between them. Bob Struble and I worked hard to stay in the hunt, and one or the other of us occasionally led at some point, but when the flag went down, it was either Meade or Jan across the line in first place - go figure! I don't know how many races took place before Debbie and I got to the course, but we scored seven excellent races before the sun set.The drive home was a 2 out of ten, with black ice and cars spinning out all over. It was entertaining to predict which of the 4x4's pulling four place snowmobile trailers and blasting by in the left lane would be the first to do doughnuts and end up in the snowbank. We left at 7:30pm, and arrived home at 2:30am - a new elapsed time record for the 250 mile journey! All in all it was still worth it for another excellent weekend of sailing at Elk Lake.
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Pos Sail# Name Race> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Points
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1 US 1183 GOUGEON, JAN 1 1 1 1 1 2 ( 4) 7.00
2 US 882 GOUGEON, MEADE 2 3 5 ( 5) 2 1 1 14.00
3 US 4055 STRUBLE, BOB 3 2 3 ( 4) 3 3 2 16.00
4 US 4061 GOODWIN, PAUL ( 8) 4 2 2 4 4 5 21.00
5 US 4192 ROGOSKI, RANDY 6 5 6 6 (DNS) 5 3 31.00
6 US 4974 JONES, STAN 5 ( 8) 7 3 6 6 7 34.00
7 US 610 JONES, DONALD DNS 6 DNS (DNF) 5 7 6 50.00
8 US 2138 LONG, GEORGE 4 7 4 DNF (DNS) DNS DNS 54.00
9 US 4945 LEONARD, BRUCE 11 10 9 7 8 (DNS) DNS 58.00
10 US 4730 LEONARD, DAVE 10 11 8 8 9 (DNS) DNS 59.00
11 US 3283 WILLIAMS, J. BRUCE 7 DNS DNF (DNS) 7 DNS DNS 66.00
12 US 4882 WOLLAM, RICHARD 9 9 DNS (DNS) DNS DNS DNS 70.00
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Updated January 23,1998