Doc Fellows regatta update
I spent the day sailing tomorrow’s regatta venue and there is plenty of good ice. Today’s snow event left about an inch of fluffy light snow on top of a good 4" of very nice ice. It was starting to drift up by the end of the day but tomorrow promises to be a very nice day with sun and 10 to 12 knots of breeze more than enough to power through.
We could use some volunteers to help keep score and drop flags. We can promise large amounts of praise, gratitude and a front row seat to the action for those who help out. Always a good time.
Everyone is welcome to participate in the racing. DNs of all levels are enociursgebto joinnin and we are more than happy to start any class ot three or more boats. All we ask is that you are members of the NEIYA.
One potential issue is parking at the Leavitts beach launch site. There is minimal plowed parking space on the beach but there is a good sized plowed parking lot on your left before you enter the beach parking lot. So please move your car to the upper lot after unloading.
There are miles of ice to explore and race on but there are several hazards to be aware of so make sure to debrief with someone who knows what’s up before heading out. Be safe. See you tomorrow.
Oliver Moore
Doc Fellows Regatta ON
We are going to attempt to sail the Doc Fellows regatta this Saturday, Jan 8th, out of Leavitt Park on the northern end of Lake Winnipesaukee. The launch site address is:
Leavitt Park
50 Leavitt Park Rd
Meredith NH 03253
We will have a skippers meeting at 10 am in the pits at the beach. We will attempt to get at least a 3 race regatta in on Saturday and if we can’t we will try again Sunday.
Any and all club member DNs are welcome to participate in the racing. Also if any others want to race we are happy to drop flags for any other class with 3 or more boats.
It sounds like there will also be a kitewing demo being run out of the same beach. It sounds like there is about 4" of ice stretching all the way down Bear Island and the pictures are pretty stunning. Plenty of room for cruising and racing alike.
See you there!
Oliver
Ice Reports How To
There has been a little confusion about the new set up so hopefully this will answer some questions.
Wiggio is simply a tool to manage email lists among a group. It operates in a very similar fashion to the yahoo groups and any other email chain you have been involved with.
If you want to reply to an email from the group you have two options:
1) Hit reply and whatever you say will be sent to the entire group.
2) If you only want the sender of the email to receive your reply scroll down to the bottom of the email and click the "Reply to only the sender" link.
If you want to start a new discussion, for example if you have a report from a different location you want to share with the group you send an email to:
neiyaicereport
If you want to want to receive the ice report emails send an email to john at:
john
and you will receive an invitation email with a link to follow. Follow that link and set up an account. Club membership is not required but we would really appreciate it if you would support our effort by joining. You can pay membership dues through paypal on the club website:
theneiya.org
Those are the basics. If you go to wiggio.com and log in you can see all the past reports. If you lose reports in your crowded email inbox you will be able to find them there.
If you have any questions feel free to contact John. Or me. Better John as he’s the one who really knows what’s going on and I would probably just ask him.
Oliver Moore
NEIYA Regatta Chairman
Mid Week Status Report
We are making ice. Cold temps around the North East and lots of places have skimmed over.
Vermont doesn’t sound like she has much to offer. Big breeze has been an issue. Inner Malletts Bay is frozen but it sounds like there are some good sized open spots in the middle.
In New Hampshire Winni has started to lock up. I got a report of 2 inches of ice at levetts beach and they are going back tomorrow to scout and hopefully sail.
Similarly the guys in Maine are going to check the southern bay of Lake Sebago which had 1.5" of fresh ice today.
There looks to be some sort of snow event on Friday which could jam us up but we will see what reports come back tomorrow. Other than that it is shaping up to be a good weekend for ice boating. My intention is to pick a location for the Doc Fellows regatta based on tomorrow’s scouting reports.
Please keep sending in any and all reports.
Think Ice!
Oliver
Canadian Champs Recap
Good recap of the weekends racing from our host John Curtis along with some pics and a video from some of the Queen’s university Sailing team members who were awesome enough to run the races. Got to love the new techniques.
Hi Andre,
It turned out that Saturday was the better day. Good lesson in trying to predict ice conditions.
We had 7 races. Final results were
1st James Thieler
2nd Oliver Moore
3rd Peter Van Rossem (1st Canadian)
I left the score sheets at home but the two US boats, fresh back from the Worlds in Estonia seemed to have an extra top end gear and they were very polished in the transitions at the start and whenever the wind died.
Saturday was looking grim at 8 am We had 5 cm of fresh snow, but the lake was quite wind blown so not much coverage out there. The temperature had gone down to -5 C overnight and frozen up all the remaining puddles on the ice left over from a rain on Wednesday.
We did 4 races on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. The ice got soft about 3 pm on Saturday so we decided to wait for Sunday to finish the regatta.
The wind on Saturday was 8-10 kts but the ice was a little soft so it was time to power up. The best combination for the day seemed to be an FO1 with inserts on the side and a Persian slipper in the front. Despite this, T seemed to make the flater ABSS go well and just squeaked ahead of Oliver in the overall results for the day despite Oliver having a slight edge in speed. It may have been different if Oliver had used the same set up for all the races. He started with snow runners in the first race but just did not have enough grip upwind.
Sunday was challenging with a north east wind that was quite light and eventually shifted to the North West and then later to the south west after racing finished.
Sunday saw the two US boats extend their lead but Peter VanRossem also had a second in race 6, beating Oliver by almost a full lap. Peter demonstrated his strategic prowess in Kingston Harbor by always going the right way and gave the US boats a run for their money in every race. With his new boat almost done, he will be a force to be reckoned with next season. Great to see the Kingston fleet pushing each other so hard.
Big thank you to all the volunteers who helped run the regatta and especially the Queen’s University Sailing Team who provided 6 people to help run races.
This event also spurred the Kingston fleet to improve their race marks and start line marks.
T and Oliver, please add anything you can think of. I will send a few pictures.
Cheers
John
Not so much.
In keeping with the script for this winter Sebago was treated to 8″ of fresh snow last night. So there goes that option.
The next option would be Damariscotta lake which saw rain instead of snow. But with a questionable forecast for the weekend and not enough time to get a good sense of the new situation I am hesitant to call a regatta on. There is a chance there will be sailing but not enough for me to make the call. So we will post pone out attempt at the New England’s till next weekend.
As an alternative there are rumors in the wind that our neighbors to the north are going to run their national championships in Kingston, ON. Looks like they have a good shot at some epic sailing so some of us at planning on packing the passports and making a run for the border.
So no club racing this weekend but let’s go give the Canucks hell.
Till next time.
Oliver Moore
Come on Sebago
Still looking like Sebago for the weekend. There is a weather event going through tonight which is supposed to be snow followed by rain so we should be ok but to be sure we wont make an official call till we take a look tomorrow. So unless something weird happens we will call the New Englands on for this weekend on Sebago tomorrow night. Also in the mix is the Sebago cup. If we can get the New Englands in on Saturday we will try to get a second regatta in on Sunday. But lets not et ahead of ourselves…
Stay tuned!
Oliver Moore
NEIYA Regatta Chairman
USA 5469
I’m not dead yet!
The season isn’t over!
We are aiming to host the New England Championships this weekend.
My best guess right now would be Lake Sebago, sailed last weekend, plenty of ice and the extended forecast has no major issues in it, but there are other options.
As we enter the tail end of the season the window of opportunities for sailable ice gets narrower for each lake so please call in your ice reports!
Or you can contact me directly:
moore.oliver.j
Oliver Moore
NEIYA Regatta Chairman
USA 5469
White out
We had some sailing today in lakeville but it is absolutely dumping the four lettered “s” word right now. So it looks like we are the other four letter “s” word out of luck to get a regatta in tomorrow. Try again next week. There is plenty of ice out there we just need some love from the weather for some late season magic.
Till next time.
Oliver Moore
Rigging up
Steve and I have done a quick walk on long pond in lakeville ma. The ice looks surprisingly good. Could even be very good. Still haven’t scouted fully for hazards but the next 8 hours may be our only shot at sailing for the foreseeable future.
No official regatta but we should have some scratch racing.
We will see what this snow does for racing tomorrow.
If you can make it come on down.
Launch is at the south east end at the boat ramp.
Again remember that this is unchecked ice so exercise extreme caution.
Oliver Moore
Really?
So here we are.
Thursdays weather has dumped a foot of snow on everything north of Boston and wet out everything south of the Mass Pike. But we have more snow coming.
I walked Snipatuit pond in Rochester today and if it firms up tonight there is a chance it will be sailable tomorrow, but I am not confident enough in it to call a race on there. We are going to take another look at it tomorrow and scout it if safe. If it is doable and somehow the weather guys have it wrong and it survives to Sunday we will race the Doc Fellows. Those are some major "ifs". I will post again Saturday afternoon with another update.
There are other potentially sailable spots in Costal Mass and any and all information is helpful so please send in you reports.
Please remember and be aware that the current conditions are a recipe for extremely dangerous ice. Make sure to use extreme caution this weekend and please stay safe.
Oliver Moore
USA 5469
NEIYA Race Chair
Sailing this weekend
We don’t know where.We don’t know when.
We don’t know what regatta.
Heck we don’t know much.
We do know that there is some weather coming through the area Thursday.
I could be snow.
It could be rain.
We don’t know.
Are you sensing a theme?
Scouts have been out this week sailing ice from Fall River all the way out to Nantucket. We know what ice we have now but we don’t know what we will have for the weekend.
We are going to try to pull something off this weekend, if it happens it will be short notice so stay posted here.
Its late in the season and we are getting desperate.
Maybe we will get lucky.
Hopefully we wont have to stay up all night to get lucky.
Oliver Moore
USA 5469
NEIYA Regatta chair
New England champs postponed
Fire off two guns and hoist the ap. The recent snow has trashed everything. We will try again next week.
Oliver Moore
New England champs this weekend
Just want to remind everyone that the New England’s are scheduled for this weekend and we will be doing everything we can to get them in. We had a great turn out last weekend at the Easterns let’s see if we can keep the momentum going.
The weather is looking more than a little chaotic for the area in the next week so it’s all hands on deck to find us a suitable venue for the weekend. If you are able to scout some potential ice please or have any information that will be helpful please email me at:
Moore.oliver.j@gmail.com
Think ice!
Oliver Moore
NEIYA race chairman
USA 5469
Easterns on!
Easterns on for Sat. -Sun. 2/1-2/2. Montys Bay, Lake Champlain. Launch at Gilbert Brook Marina, 715 Lake Shore Road, West Chazy, NY. 12992. About 10 miles above Plattsburgh. NY. Registration at launch 9:00 AM. Racing to follow.
Easterns on
The 2014 Eastern championships are called on for February 1st and 2nd in the Plattsburgh NY area. The launching area will chosen tomorrow. There are multiple potential site between Plattsburgh and Burlington VT and we will wait for more information before making a final decision.
Eben Whitcomb and Oliver Moore
Easterns this weekend
The Easterns are tentatively called on for this weekend February 1 and 2. We will make the official call Wednesday night but we are going to try to get the regatta in this weekend. At this point our most likely site will be sailing out of Plattsburgh where the North Americans were sailed last week but we are going to look into other suitable sites.
Stay posted here for further updates.
Oliver Moore and Eben Whitcomb.
Who pissed off the weather?
Having done a tour through our northern neighbor cold calling Canadian potential ice we are homing in on Plattsburgh. The weather gods sure have been giving it to us.
Image credit John Dennis and Jim Mcdonagh
West ward ho.
Thursday morning saw us breaking our fast with IDNIYRA vice commodore Kent Baker in Toledo over grits. After extracting ourselves from the bass pro shop outdoor world we continued west to our current location south of Chicago.
The regatta information is on:
Stay posted.
Oliver Moore
USA 5469
Pictures courtesy of Kent Baker and shamelessly pinched from Facebook (JJS)
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Road trips season has begun
A group of NEIYA DN boaters are headed west with a token Canadian. The great western challenge has been tentatively called on for this weekend on lake Onalaska in La Crosse, WI.
Giddy up. Reports will follow. Hopefully of sailing.
Oliver Moore
USA 5469
Headin’ Home… Pt #2
….Where was I? Oh yeah. so we are tired, sore, more or less broke, and way behind on every to-do list we have. Balance that against the mental snapshots of flying arounf the top mark neck-and-neck with some of the top DN sailors in the world, breeze cranking, boatspeed around 60+mph or more, rigs bent so far they are almost horizontal at the base…. ripping upwind at 50+ with the boat glued down on the ice and hauling ass…. blazing downwind fully wicked-up, on the edge of a major spinout while going so fast the passing scenery looks like stop-action photography… looking ahead to see the two lead boats fly around the leeward mark side-by side in the setting sun….
Hell yes, it’s worth it.
Team RI out.
Headin’ Home…. Pt 1
Award ceremony yesterday afternoon at regatta HQ. Well done, all trophies handed out and as a bonus two pretty sweet items were raffled off; a North F-01 sail and a Composite Concepts front runner. The drawing was certainly fixed as the runner was won by Hal Bowman’s wife (who doesn’t sail or even own a boat) and Deb Whitehorse won the sail (I don’t think she owns a DN either). Obviously somebody rigged it but until we have proof we’ll let the so-called winners keep the booty. Hal has already started calculating how many nice dinners it’ll take until he gets his paws on his wife’s sweet new runner….
Good times indeed. Dinner for a group of about 20 at the Republic Steakhouse and back to the hotel where, in a surprising development, a bunch of sailors (who may or may not have been from Toledo) were holding court at the bar. I’ll spare ya’ll the gory details but pranks were pranked, jokes were joked, stories were told, chops were busted, and a great time was had by all.
Bedtime was late and wake-up call was earlyyyy… hit the highway at 4AM with a full tank of gas, snow and sleet coming down, a vicious crosswind, and Chad’s nearly lifeless body in the passenger seat. Tied up in traffic near Chicago for awhile but clicking off the miles ever since.
DN NA Update Day 2- That’s a Wrap
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DN NA Update
| If you’ve been following these reports you know it was honkin’ this AM. The comittee did a great job of delaying until the breeze faded out just enough to race this afternoon- All of the sudden it went from hurry-up-and-wait to GET ON THE LINE!! Three Gold and three silver races before the sun got low…. Not bad! Committee did a great job banging them out.
Wild and woolly!! Fast ice and plenty of breeze saw fast boat speeds and a few spinouts and a few broken rigs- And a lot of grins and whootin’ and hollerin’! It was a day for your flattest sail and your heaviest runners… For the North Sail gang that means the MS-1 and 1/4″ inserts. New England is being represented well- Eben Whitcomb and Oliver Moore sailed their way into the Gold Fleet. Eben insists that we treat him better now but the hazing has yet to begin. As for Oliver we treat him like dirt all the time so no change there. Chad has had some good races, including a 5th in the last one that has him all fired up. He has definitely found a setup that is working for him- Yours truly has an 8, 6, 4. And I’m psyched about it! I think Ron Sherry is in the lead and Matt Struble and John Dennis are hot on his heels. Today was the kind of sailing day that keeps you coming back for more of this nutty-ness. Amazing. If you’re home reading this you’re missing a good one! Will see what happens tomorrow, snow in the forecast but with three races done this regatta is in the books. Time to stone runners and get cleaned up- Stay tuned… PS Sorry the pics aren’t better- I shot them with my phone. James “T” Thieler 401-258-6230 |
New England Ice Yacht Association 