Just finished a new ice boat.

http://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=120456

It's a design from my buddy, John Eisenlohr, my regular catamaran crew, and designer, builder and sailor extraordinaire, of iceboats and landsailers, many powered by solid wings. This one is aimed at the home builder(he sells plans for $60, and has a great series of videos on youtube that document the build), small, comfortable(not a DN!), and fast(clocked in the fifties last season), and easy to rig. Which translates into more days on the ice than the bigger boats can manage. He built the prototype last year, and it proved it's performance and utility, serving him up over twenty days on the ice.

I started mine in early October, spending most weekends in the Montana Wooden Boat Foundation's fabulous shop in Lakeside, MT, building alongside 5 other guys doing the same design. Mine's the first off the line, with theirs to follow shortly. Great camaraderie in the shop, fun to be sharing stories, and offering each other assistance at the appropriate times. Gonna have a fleet here soon!

So now I'm chasing ice, too warm here so far in the Spokane area, raining now. I did all my iceboating in MT last season, and may again this year, with El Nino threatening a warmer and moister winter than normal. There's quite a large iceboating community on Canyon Ferry, east of Helena, big fun to hang with them, and it's a monster reservoir, great for the big boats as well as small. John lives in the Flathead Valley in NW Montana, and I have a cabin there as well, so we'll sail there if we get the conditions we need.

For those interested in this design, or even just viewing a bunch of very cool videos of fast machines, search youtube for US772, John's channel includes the Mini Skeeter build vids, great landsailing and iceboating videos, and even a few catamaran runs on Flathead Lake aboard my boats.

Have a look at this great compliment to our beloved sport!

Dave

Cool (cold) boat Dave!

Wondering about lake access for iceboat sailing? Do you park on land and launch from marinas or something or just drive onto the lake from anywhere? How do the iceboaters and ice fisherman get along?

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These small boats are light enough to carry to a launch site, but we usually use boat ramps for fishing access sites. When the ice is thick enough (8") we do drive onto the ice to unload and load. We try to keep our distance from the ice fishermen, assuming that the noise of the boats might impinge on the fishing. Fortunately, they tend to gather near the put in, so we just head out onto the lake. They're usually just mildly curious, different passions I guess, what we do must be as incomprehensible to them as they're activity is to us!

John and I also have big boats as well, that run on dirt and ice both, but setting them up is a big enough endeavor that we want to leave them assembled for some period of time. Which requires a place to keep them, and someone to keep an eye on them should condition change rapidly. Which is why we've come to enjoy these smaller boats so much, we can use smaller lakes that freeze earlier/easier(shallower), and the set up time is only about 15 minutes.

Hi Dave, That is really cool. Are you using a wind surfer rig on that boat and just adding a boom? I have a buddy with a place in MT, so it gives me all sorts of ideas. I have the wind surfer stuff so it would be nice if you use those rigs. Thanks for posting up the pictures.

The rig uses a carbon windsurf mast with an alum stiffener in the bottom 3', and the sail(s) are the same construction as windsurf sails, but much flatter. Less power needed to get her going(far less drag than thru water), and it needs to be flatter for less drag at speed, which for this boat is in the 50s or 60s, if you've got the cojones! Windsurf sails can be recut pretty simply to use in this application, the leading edge is modified for less draft, and some of the lower section is cut off to use this boom configuration. There's a landsailing site called Seabreeze out of Australia that gives very good directions on how to do it. My smallest sail, 2.5 mtr (the Handkercheif!), is a cut down windsurf sail, works great in 25 plus! Bruce Peterson at Sailworks has designed sails, 5.5 and 4.0, specifically for this boat, and they're blazingly fast. EP and North also have experience with sails of this type. I have a 5.5, 4.0, 3.0 and the 2.5, so I can sail powered up in anything under 35 kts of breeze. With good ice and some experience, you can have a good time in 4 or 5 kts of wind. And generally, the smaller the sail, the faster the top end the boat will see, less total aerodynamic drag, coupled with the increased power available in bigger winds.

Where in MT? We work out of the Flathead Valley when we have favorable conditions, and travel to the iceboat Mecca of the west, Canyon Ferry, east of Helena, where there's a large contingent of iceboaters, with a long history of sailing that venue. Big lake, east of the divide, so colder temps than NW Montana, and the mts stop a lot of moisture, so better chances of clear ice. Plus, westerly flow descending the east face of the divide often produces big breeze, we also watch the lakes east of Glacier for the same reasons. This sport is even more fickle than soft water sailing, so you need to be willing to chase the requisite conditions, but the return is huge. The acceleration in the puffs is breathtaking! PM me and we can exchange emails.

Dave

Dave, thanks for the great info. We have experienced the same results with our cat, smaller flatter sails meaning faster top speed in bigger breeze. This certainly has me thinking.

thanks,