Wow, What a Day on Winni!

I came upon this ice formation near the leeward mark and it best describes yesterday (Friday 1/25) perfectly. 40 sailors gathered at the intersection of ice and Ice and Fun.

Blessed by ice

Sailors came from all over New England, Long Island NY, The Jersey Shore, and Andre’ Baby brought six Canadians down on his coattails two from far away Hamilton This almost invalidated thier participation in the Common Sense regatta but as we know ice draws us to the extreme. We were thrilled to host the MIT iceboating team with their four Buchholz build DNs. They were thrilled to take their first spin on an iceboat. Remember your first iceboat sail? Those smiles should remind you. We look forward to sailing with the MIT team again soon.

MIT Iceboating Team

The day started out with some light breeze as shown on the NEIYA burgee at the top of my mast (yes we reordered let me know if you want one). This a gave everyone a chance to familiarize themselves with the ice conditions. The wind speeds increased at about noon and the real fun began.

The NA orphans and many others gathered around the leeward mark and ran numerous scratch races to complete the Small Sky (common sense) Regatta. Racing continued till about 3:00 and we followed the dying breeze back into the pits.

Some views from the pit. We had a couple pro photographers out there shooting who promised to send us their pics so more to come. If you have some favorite shots send them my way.

We have a front moving in today and it could prep us for some great sailing in February. Winni again? We will see…

The NA’s in Montana are still going on with one more day of races. In the Gold Fleet, Chad and T are still first and second follow by Ron Sherry. Bill Bucholz is currently in 8th place with an impressive 2nd place yesterday in the Silver fleet. Wishing the NEIYA and all competitors the best of luck on this final day of competition and a smooth ride home. Preliminary results here http://dniceboat.org/2020/na.html

That’s all for now as the ice is calling…

See you on the ice,

John
DN5023
john@neiya.org

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