|
|
About our Group |
Eastern Maine Iceboaters consists of a small, unorganized group of builder/sailers that enjoy building one of a kind iceboats on shoe string budgets and always have a good time doing so. A few of us are members of the Chickawaukee Ice Boat Club. Some members of the group just show up and sail while others in the group eat, sleep and breathe iceboats. We have chosen to take the path less followed in our pursuit of weekend fun. We have all had test drives in the DN class iceboat and a couple of our members own DN's but for the most part we have opted for boats that allow a more comfortable seating position and creative costruction methods.We use what we have or what we can get on the cheap to build our boats. We fabricate a lot of our own hardware and in some cases buy junked out sailboats for the blocks, staywires, masts, sails, etc. We don't do any racing to speak of other than throwing out a few cones and sailing around them. Some members of the group build a new boat every season and others renovate their existing boats as more effiecient configurations are tried and tested. We sail mostly on Walker Pond in Brooksville, Maine but do travel to other ponds around the state when we don't have ice on Walker. Contrary to popular opinion it is possible to build a boat from scratch with everyday items that will provide a good time on the ice. Personally I find the build to be as much fun as the icetime . The information on this site should be a big help to anyone considering a homebuilt boat and help them to avoid some of the bumps in the road that we have encountered. I hope you find this site interesting as well as informative. Thanks for stopping by. If you have photos or articles you would like to post on here please send them to kgrindle@roadrunner.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Kevin Grindle If we can't sail during iceboat season we take on a group experimental project such as this rigid wing to keep us entertained.Pictured are Bonnie, Mike and Larry. They work like the Keebler Elves when it comes to iceboat building. |