THE BLOG by Kent Baker, Past Commodore Toledo Ice Yacht Club DN 5219
DN Worlds / North Americans
February 8-14, 2009
Torch Lake, Michigan
Other Information Resources:
http://iceboat.org/seasons/08-09/dn/0809dn.html (4 lakes Ice Yacht Club)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gretchdorian/sets/72157613492040954/ (Gretchen Dorian's Photos)
http://www.idniyra.org/results/results09_worlds.html (DN Worlds Results)
http://www.idniyra.org/results/results09_nas.html (DN North Americans Results from Day 1)
February 14, 2009
DAY 7 - Going North to go South.
5:45 AM: Snoring is happening in live stereo splendor around me. I need to get up before I start to think about stupid stuff.
Forecast today 80% chance of snow. Winds 1-3 Mph all morning. 3-5 Mph after Noon. We certainly were hoping to packing up our stuff by noon. Temps: high of 22 and Cloudy.
I think many will not even try to make it to the race course in these conditions. I know the locals who paid double to late register for this regatta will be pissed. But I don't think it will bother anyone who was at the Worlds.
I will get dressed and head down and get some breakfast and see if there is any information floating around downstairs.
7:45 AM: Racing is called off. Too much snow little to no wind. Visibility is too low for all the hazards that are present on the ice. Awards will be on ice at 9:15 Then we will be on our way home. We have to go take our boats off the ice anyway.
8:45 AM: We get to the ice which had formed a new crack. Lucky for us, Local Ice Boater, Mike Derusha has already marked the crack, and has put some wood planking across the best crossing point to allow people to drive out to their boats. We opt to park just shy of the crack and drag our boats in.
After the awards, Mike Derusha drags out his infamous jar of pickled eggs. They really aren't bad!
Ron Sherry won the regatta. Matt Struble got second.
Jan Gougeon was 8th and the top Masters Competitor. One point of interest
was our friend from Michigan, Doug Harvey , 84 years old won the Bronze Division
and was also of course the Bronze fleet Master Class Winner.
We could have taken hours saying goodbyes... but it was best to hit the road and look forward to the North American Champs next year... wherever they may take us!
As I headed north toward Escanaba, "Destination Unkown" by Missing Person was playing on the Satellite Radio. I thought that was pretty appropriate for the regatta. John Harper, Commodore of the IDNIYRA had his hands full trying to decided on the best ice in North America. Problem was, there was no great ice... just probabilities, weather forecasts, and a variety of ice reports by sailors who wished to welcome the travelers to their hometowns. Somehow, on his last year as commodore, he pulls off yet another great regatta! Special Thanks to John and all the others that helped make this a great event.
We enjoy for the second time in one trip a drive through the U.P. of Michigan, over the Mackinaw, and Finally Southward to Toledo. The Weather has held out for us and we had little snow and clear roads.
Left: Mike Derusha dishes out some of his eggs. Right: Ron Sherry Below: TIYC Gang takes an egg for the road.
Above: The Winners
February 13, 2009
DAY 6 - RACING!
5:00 AM: I am awake and thinking. I think I left my wet track spikes in the RV to freeze overnight. Then I hear what sounds like snow shovels scrapping the concrete. Not Good. Next its the clamor of the garbage truck. OK ok ok.. I am up. S#%&, Shower and Shave.
6:00 AM: I head down to the breakfast buffet with the computer. Nobody else is up from our rooms. Snow is just a dusting, so shouldn't be too bad. Forecast is light and variable, but look out the window and the flag is moving well. Indicating about 10 to me. Hey cool! Sailing Anarchy has the ladies on the front page as Sailor Chicks of the Week! Very Cool.
John Harper tries to finish his breakfast, but after looking over my shoulder at the weather forecast, he is off to the ice to check conditions. He is nervous that sailors wont be able to make it to the line on time to the skippers meeting. I think we will be okay.
Sailor Chicks of the Week
Julie Richards, left, and Merili
Randmaa of Estonia are two of the
top female DN iceboat racers, seen
here the night before the first
round or racing on Torch Lake,
Michigan during the DN World
Championships. Sponsored by the
International DN Ice Yacht Racing
Association, Richards finished third
in the Bronze Fleet and Randmaa
finished 31st out of 50 in the Gold
Fleet, the top female in the Gold
group. Photo By Gretchenn
Dorian
Luckily, I was able to dry out my shoes in the RV while I rigged the boat.
The start is delayed while two possible areas are checked out. Eventually we end up to the North, off of Menominee, MI. I place 10th in the Silver Race, which qualifies me for Gold Fleet. Neat thing is, that position gives me the 4 starting position which is located next to JR Francis in 2nd and Rob Holman, who drew #1. Rare to see three TIYC boats all lined up at the top positions. I can tell you now that I dont think any of us placed less than 10th the rest of the day. Ice was cobblestone, with occasional cracks and rough stuff. Made acceleration very tough. I am pleased that I only got last place once... you see last time I was in gold ( two years ago) I finished in the bottom 5 every race. This time my best was a 16th. Rich Potcova is in an impressive 16th place, JR Francis is 22nd. Amongst the Big dogs, Ron Sherry is having a great regatta and is 2 points ahead of Matt Struble.
Light Air Races on rough ice can be brutal. Races lasted pretty long, taking their toll on sailors necks.
Back to the hotel, have a little dinner, and a beer with the Wife and 4 of my fellow TIYC sailors, Jody Kjoller, Rich Potcova, and JR Francis. We are also joined by current regatta leader, Ron Sherry.
10:30 PM: I am typing this with one eye open... must... have... sleep...
Tomorrows forecast seems to indicate that it will be even lighter. Many are leaving tonight or first thing tomorrow morning as they have flights to catch, jobs, families, etc. This has been a long regatta. There is talk that they may call the regatta tomorrow morning. According to the rules, I believe the regatta ends after 7 gold races, or when the scheduled time has expired. At any rate, if my position goes up after tomorrow, it will be only due to attrition. Darn.
February 12, 2009
DAY 5 - Day one of NA's? Noooooo, just Another Lay Day...
7:00 AM is the latest we have been able to sleep in this trip. Open the curtains and it appears to be a freezing rain/snow mix. Not the most inviting of conditions, which will also create soft ice. Wind looks to be about 10-15 at least from the comfort of our hotel window. Will head down and check out the bulletin board and get some breakfast.
The Launch site is not very far away. We head out there, and contemplate for a while how we feel about pulling the RV and trailer out on the Ice. Eventually we decide to go halfway out to where most of the other people are staging their stuff on the ice. Soon afterward many others, including the Geugeon Brothers are pulled up near us.
The ice is sloppy wet looking with lots of slush and soft spots. We rig up. I decided to try out the Angle runners that i have borrowed from my brother in law, Bob. They have quite a lead-in which makes them great for checking out questionable ice. I did a hot lap outside the launch area and decided that it was puffy enough to break stuff. I came back in and changed to Bullnose Plate runners and thought it best just to wait.. Eventually, the 12 noon skippers meeting was delayed to nearly 1 PM and the call was made to have sailing on Friday ( and probably Saturday) tonight the temps are supposed to hit low 20's. The surface should harden up nicely and there is some talk that we are anticipating light air. Francis, Potcova, and Myself are not bothered much by this forecast. Now I have to de-rig my boat after having 2 sets of runners on it already.
We put everything away and leave our hulls planks, and masts up. JR is all into hanging out in the RV. We kill a bottle of rum. Leave a carbon footprint probably larger than the tire tracks by using the generator, and the propane furnace out there. Now we figure there is nothing wrong with all that ice and fire up the RV and drive on out to hang out with a group of our buddies from Minnesota. It was a full house out there. Even Neil, the dog enjoyed hanging out in the RV out in the middle of the ice. I guess that is part of the fascination people have with fishing all day in ice shanties.. pretty cool really.
We made it back in safely but were intercepted by a local newspaper reporter that had unbeknownst to us followed us back form the launch area when we arrived at the hotel. If we have presence of mind at some point we might just try to find the article for our archives back at home. Speaking of back at home, we got text messages from our buddies in Toledo that the local ice in Maumee Bay had all blown out. Done. So I guess it doesn't matter that much that this regatta is getting dragged out. Still sailing more here than anywhere else.
Headed downstairs and had wings at the hotel bar. Not too bad... Mike Rehe from Detroit Ice Yacht Club joined us. I think I am supposed to be a member of that club myself now.. I need to talk to Leon about that... Anyway no further jackassery to report at this point.
Photo : Jody Kjoller rigs his boat. Yes, The RV and trailer is out on the ice. That is the Launch ramp in the background.
February 11, 2009
DAY 4 - Travel Day
Second day in a row that its okay to sleep in, but Chris and I are still wide awake by 7:00 AM. We begin packing and by the time we are 90% packed we find that out travel buddies in the other room aren't even up yet. No worries, no hurries - we will be traveling all day either way.
9:00 we are almost ready and the call has been made to travel to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the North American Championship. This will be on a huge sheet of ice that the vehicles are driving down a ramp, out on the lake and crossing a bridge over a crack to get to where we would be sailing.
Our trip takes us through the beautiful cities of Charlevoix, Petosky, over the Mackinaw Bridge, and westward through the Upper Peninsula. Views are spectacular and much appreciated since last time we came this way two years ago it was night time and snowing.
4:00 PM We are now heading past Green Bay toward Menominee / Marinette. We happen to notice a DN and a truck out on the ice. Then Passing through Marinette, we happen to see another car load of sailors going the opposite way. While Rich is saying "Huh, they must be lost"! A light bulb goes off in my head and I dial the DN Hotline and discover that they no longer have confidence in the Oshkosh site. The instructions say not to go past Menominee. So we pull into a Menards parking lot, so Jody can look for some material to use for parts. Meanwhile, the generator kicks on, leftover pizza is warming in the microwave, and cold beer is being served out of the refrigerator. Taking a big cumbersome RV pays off this time. Its not until 5:45 we have the official word that the regatta has been moved to Menominee. We are only about 3/4 mile from the hotel, thanks to our decision to park and wait. Many other sailors had already checked into the hotel in Oshkosh. I have to guess that cost them a bit extra.
We get two adjoining rooms at the Best Western, then head down the street to "Night Court" a fine little dive bar we visited more than once two years ago when we stayed here.
The rest of the evening probably will consist of drinking beer and watching Chris work on runners or whatever else, as he is a nervous wreck not doing something productive.
Fridays high is forecasted to be 32 degrees. Unfortunately there is a pretty good chance of snow. Friday looks a little better, but we will have to see what kind of ice we get to work with.
February 10, 2009
DAY 3 - Lay Day
Warm weather and rain forecasts. Today is lay-day with awards for the World Championship to be held at 1AM. 10AM, sun is shining and the rain is done, hopefully for the day. We will do some exploring of the Traverse City area today, and hope that the temps will go down tonight and refreeze a perfect sheet of ice on Torch Lake. Awards were held for the World Championships at 2 PM. Afterwards we headed back to the ice to take our boats off as the conditions were rapidly deteriorating in the 55 degree temperatures. Erica and I part from our TIYC travel buddies to have dinner with a mix of people from Detroit, Traverse City, Long Island, Denmark, and Germany. We went to the old downtown area of Traverse on front street at a fine little French restaurant called Amical. Best food and service we have had while staying here.
At the "Annual Argument" otherwise known as the IDNIYRA Annual Meeting, Discussions included that of the use of "Darling Marks" to increase safety and reduce the chance of collisions at the Marks. Also decisions were made to go ahead and Start offering an opt-out on the Runner tracks newsletter and go to the electronic form. Likewise it was agreed by the membership to also go to online payment and registrations for dues, regatta registrations and sail numbers.
Ice Report was given by John Harper and he made the call that we would be at one of 3 places in Wisconsin. His call was to start toward Menominee (Green Bay) and call the hotline at Noon for the actual site location.
The end of the meeting, the floor was given to Daniel Hearn, who has taken the Ice-Opti program under his wing to promote the sport to youngsters. He had the whole group stand up, and one by one had members sit down by age group. By the time he had 40 and over sit down, there were only about 8 people standing. At 35 and over there were only 3 standing. By doing this, Daniel demonstrated the potential problem that could be facing the future of our organization, and certainly commanded our attention into the matters of supporting new sailors, and supporting the Ice-Opti class. The Ice-Opti class will continue to be run autonomously, but the IDNIYRA will work with them to give support wherever possible.
February 9, 2009
DAY 2 - Worlds Concluded
Another gorgeous day! While it was warmer out, what little ice melt we had evaporated and kept things dry. Air was humid and a bit bone chilling.
First race of the day was bronze fleet for their 3 race of the regatta. The wind died on them and turned into a pushing race. They did make the time limit, but it certainly was a physically taxing race. Gold Fleet followed with their race #4 and the wind picked up a little for them, but not much. The results were quite shuffled with John Harper taking the bullet on this one. Leader, Matt Struble was 12th, in the race that would become his throwout. My first race of the day in Silver would become my best of the year so far, taking a second and almost catching up to the leader, Jim McDonagh the last two laps. Of course I violated the rule about changing something that is working well, and took off my F.O.-1 sail and went to a speed sail for the next race, since the wind was increasing. Sure enough I am lined up next to Jim on the starting line and I commented out loud that the wind just died down and I went to a speed sail. Jim let out his typical giggle and said, "yep! you F.O.'d that one"! Must... Have... Power... Uggghh.. 20th place. At least Rich Potcova was consistently pulling of good races, throwing out a 6th place to finish in Second place by just one point behind McDonagh.
In Bronze Fleet, we all took great interest in rooting for Julie Richards, who finished in third place but 6 points behind the leader, and had a first and two seconds to command the respect of her male competitors.
While it isn't surprising that Matt Struble easily took the Gold Cup honors, Ron Sherry was fighting to get second place and needed to recover from a 9th place he would have to keep. On the last leeward rounding of the last race, Ronnie was around 6th place which might not be good enough to get a second in the regatta. But he pulled through the fleet with a miracle comeback to put the American Flag Behind the first and second place competitors of the event!
February 8, 2009
DAY 1 - A Great Start!
Below: Panoramic view of the pit area on Torch Lake.
Weather was fantastic today. We the ice froze up nice overnight, and we had some pretty good conditions. The ice stayed dry all day, wind was 12-15 for the first races, then the last races it picked up to around 20. Gold and Silver Fleet had three races. Bronze had two.
In the Gold fleet, Matt Struble has 2 thirds and a first. Ron Sherry has a 7,1,2. Bernd Zeiger was hot in the earlier races and is probably doing pretty well in the standings.
In the Bronze Julie Wollam (formerly known as Julie Richards) scored a 2,1 with a brand new hull.
Jim McDonagh is leading Silver while our own Richard Potcova scored 6,4,2 and is closing in behind.
There was around 5 sailors whose boats were destroyed or damaged in various mishaps. There were some injuries, and one person flown to the hospital. Fortunately he was checked out to have no broken bones or internal injuries.
There was so much debris on the course that the race committee decided to suspend racing for the remainder of the day.
Special thanks to TIYC's Rob Olson who happened to be watching at the weather mark at the time and the accident and was the first on the scene to assist with the injured. He quickly assessed the situation and called the authorities, who had him off the ice and to a hospital that was standing by for his arrival.
After the races, the good people of Grand Traverse Ice Yacht Club had chili for everyone.
February 7, 2009
ROAD TRIP!
5:55 AM I awake and find that my 5:45 alarm did not go off. Luckily, my expactations for the week ahead got me up on time. Hit the shower, start loading the RV, and finally pack the computer. My wife, Erica is still in bed, but is also looking forward to the trip. I know better than to try and get her up too soon. She is all packed and ready to go, just needs to shower and get dressed.
6:50 AM Erica is in the shower and I need to go hook up the trailer and get the rest of the guys. I tell Erica I will swing by and pick her up, for which she seems grateful that she now doesn’t have to rush.
I head down to where the trailer is stored and am surprised that no-one else is even there. I expected Chris Teal to be pacing nervously in the driveway, but not a soul. I check the clock on the dashboard. Yup going on 7AM.
Jody Kjoller pulls in behind me. Good, at least now I have someone to help me hitch up the trailer.
We get the trailer hooked up and Rich Potcova comes along and informs us he wants to load the runner sharpener. I was hoping that everything was already loaded, but you never know when you will need a good runner sharpener.
As we load the last of the equipment I start wonder whats up with Teal? “Hey Rich… you talk to Teal yet” ? I can see his hands are full, so I dial Chris up on the cell phone. “Yeah, my alarm didn’t go off, I am just getting into the point right now”.
Good everyone is accounted for and at least en-route.
As we load the last of Chris’s stuff, he asks if we need to have our liability insurance papers with us, already knowing the answer is “Of course, yes”!
Slight change of plans… now we need to route past Chris’s house on the way out for him to pick up insurance documents. Not too big a deal, its sort of in the right direction anyway.
But this is to be noted that Chris, who is historically the nervous one of the group and is afraid to be late or unprepared has done just that on the morning of departure. Matter of fact it will go on the internet for all the world to see.
We kid because we love. There are about 7 or 8 people that I have traveled with on iceboat trips that are just great friends and make the often long trips less tedious. This trip there is only 4 of us sailors, plus one wife In the RV. Our buddy, JR Francis who resides in Florida and is a professional boat captain, will meet up with us at the site today.
Conspicuous by his absence is my brother in law, Aaron Stange who has work obligations this week. He is usually our ringleader and is also the highest rank sailor of the bunch having come in 10th place in the Worlds last year that was held in the Czheck Republic last year. Also missing due to work obligations, is Mike Deye, the owner of the “420 express”, a DN that probably has the most insane paint job. Aliens, Jimmy Hendrix, Dice and various psychodelia all painted on the decks and sides.
Those guys will be missed but I am sure they will be calling each evening for updates, even though they can get it themselves online.
Saturday, February 7th 7:41 PM
We made it to the launch site in one piece. We rigged our boats, but there was plenty of water on top of the ice, making it pretty wet.
The ice was a clear aqua color, and you could see to the bottom. Scary looking where at times you couldn’t even tell if you were standing on ice, or just hovering in space.
We are hoping it re-freezes tonight, but it is possible it might not freeze all the way through in the deep spots, (up to 4 inches of water) and form shell-ice. Runners will break through the ice and will slow the boat down substantially. In some cases, it can stop a boat fast enough to do damage or even cause injury.
With any luck much of it will evaporate before it freezes and we can start our racing in the morning.
At 4PM we held a flag raising ceremony, where a representative from each country lines their boats up and each raises the flag as their anthem is played. A great tradition.
Later at the hotel we checked in the room and went to 7PM registration. Entrants were given Jackets with the event name embroidered on them.
As I write this, room 348 is overtaken by fellow TIYC sailors. Adult beverages, conversation and of course the never ending task of stoning runners is the activity that is typically seen here.
AT
Right : Matt Struble, defending DN World Champ raises the American flag during
the opening ceremonies.
People are getting hungry and we will be heading out to dinner. Jackassery might ensue...