NewSailingDiary

After a short work versus sail
debate with myself and a listen to
the weather report the ice monger
in me decided to sail in the window
of oppurtunity before the coming
snow storm. Knowing that
Walker Pond was rough but not just
how rough Mike and I decided to
pass up the grade 9 ice at
Burntland Pond and scout for
smooth ice at Walker before it got
covered with the white stuff. We
met and rigged at daylight and had
the luxury of backing out onto the
ice. It is so nice to pull the boat
and rigging out of the trailer and
plop it onto the ice. It was amazing
how much the ice had smoothed
out since I checked it just a few
days earlier.
Within a few minutes we were
rattleing , crunching and
scrunching down wind towards the
North end of the pond with just
enough of a breeze to keep us
moving. Even at a snails pace there
is always a friendly race going on
between Mike and I. We could sail
runner to runner and poke fun at
each other as one passed the other
pending a patch of glass like ice.
We soon found ourselves spotting
the smooth ice in advance and
trying to push each other into the
rough ice to keep the leed.
About half way up the pond we got
into a wind pocket and Mike veared
off to work the wind as I continued
North in search of smooth ice. His
last words to me were "It's gonna
be a long walk back from that end
of the pond". Having faith that the
predicted 10-20 knot winds would
arrive soon I continued the
downwind snails pace in search of
heavenly ice. I took my helmet and
gloves off, played with my camera
and enjoyed the ride.
As I passed Gull Ledges I was a bit
dissapointed not to find smooth ice
as the day before it looked like the
best ice on the pond as viewed
from Caterpillar Hill.
A puff of wind now and then helped
me reach the North end of the
pond and sail the shoreline. Rough
and rattly seemed to be the theme
of this trip although I did find one
small piece of heavenly ice that
had a multitude of fishing traps the
entire length of it, a guy doing
doughnuts on a an atv and a dog
that liked to chase iceboats. I kept
my distance and rattled around the
glistening gem that I had come so
far to find. I don't know if the
fisherman got a flag or he just felt
like going for a ride but he and his
dog took off to the far end of the
passion plate so I came about,
caught a puff and zipped quietly
through the middle of this
zambonied section of Walker Pond.
I had picked up enough speed on
this short strip of ice to run the
length of the rattly NW shoreline of
Walker Pond and up into a cove
that offered no wind for the trip
back. Damn I thought to myself!!!
After a mile of walking my boat
back to the South end of Walker in
the absolute breathless morning
sun I got a great chance to check
the ice one foot step at a time.
Mike was at the South end of the
pond and his boat had not moved
for a good half hour. I was a little
concerned that he might have been
knocked out by his boom. He was
to far from shore to be having a
coffee break and I have never
known him to sit in one place for
very long. As I got closer to him I
could hear a voice that said"Walker
Pond Sucks" so I new he was ok.
The wind picked up enough so I
could sail but I noticed Mike was
still not moving. I finally made my
way to his location and asked him if
he was ok. He said he was fine and
enoying a game of solitaire on his
cell phone. We sailed back to the
ramp and had a mug up.
During our mug up the sky got
black and the winds started
howling. We had gone from pushing
our boats to wind management
mode in less than 15 minutes.
Tired of getting beat up on the ice
every day we put on some storm
sails that we made for just such an
occasion. I didn't get a picture of
Mikes storm sail but it worked
great. If I remember correctly it
measured 12' x 6'. Mike put in some
runs well over 40 knots with his
baby sail and looked quite
comfortable doing so in the
turbulent gusty winds that Walker
is so famous for. Odly enough our
boats sailed very similar to when
we have on our larger sails. Mike
could blast past me in the lighter
winds and I could gain on him in the
heavy gusts.
We flapped our tongues at the
rigging ripping gusts and sailed until
our asses were numb from the
rough and rattly ice. We both
agreed that Walker is only a 6 and
if you spend a day sailing on this
ice you'll literally be a numbass.
Perhaps a little snow will do this
surface some good.