If it were easy, everyone would be an ice sailor! Mother Nature is doing her best to throw us curve balls, but we’re hangin’ tough in the box ticking off foul balls. Strike one has been the warm weather in most of the places it’s supposed to be cold. Strike two has been the snow in the few places it’s been cold enough for ice. Later this week the ornery wench is threatening to throw some chin music, brushing us back from all the usual places we look for ice, with a major league dumping of snow. So, right now we’re looking to the west into the Dakotas and Montana to identify the places she’s overlooked. Our DN cowboy ice checking network is already out on the range looking for black gold. Sharpen’m up, pull out your cowboy boots and be ready to travel, partner, we may be headed west. Or maybe she’s just playing with us. We’ll see as the week progresses. Stay tuned and Think Ice!
RESULTS
The 2020 DN Western Region regatta was sailed on Lake Puckaway in Wisconsin the weekend of January 4-5, 2020. Conditions were about as perfect as ice sailing can be with hard ice and constant breeze over both days. Congratulations to all who made the effort to attend this event. The Youtube video embedded above is a collection of raw footage downloaded from the Facebook accounts of Deb Whitehorse, Pat Heppert, and Jeff Kent.
A huge thanks to all who volunteered for Race Commitee including Western Region Commodore Daniel Hearn, Co-PROs Joe Norton & Dan Heaney, the scoring team of Erica Stange, Mercedes Auger, Pat Heppert, and Julie Jankowski, Fred Stritt at the weather mark,Terry Reynolds and Maureen Bohleber who stepped up where ever needed.
See you on January 19, 2020 at the North American Championship. What, you haven’t registered? There’s still time to join the fun, information here.
What a way to kick off a new year! Our friend, Dave Elsmo and his wife, Andrea, welcomed a baby girl into the world this morning; the Badgers are playing in the Rose Bowl at 4:00, I’m christening my new C-Skeeter tomorrow, and I’m officially calling “ON” the Western Lakes Regional DN Championship! 2020…I like the looks of you already!
Venue Lake Puckaway, just outside of Montello, Wisconsin, which is about an hour north of Madison. This is the same venue where the Great Western Challenge was held two weeks ago. Launch at Marquette County Park—Apuckawa Boat Landing. Map Ice is 6-7 inches thick, but we will NOT be parking trailers on the ice. Unload at the landing and park in the lot. We are anticipating a good size fleet, so park as efficiently as possible. MAP
Conditions 6-7 inches of orange peel texture…no seams detected except on the far northwest corner of the lake near Mike & Cathy’s Good Old Days Resort, which should NOT be on the course. Few ice fishermen at this time, but we expect that to change for the weekend. Ice sail checked by “DN Ranked racers” Bob Cummins and Mike Jankowski. Sheet is large enough for two courses, so we should not be space constrained.
Weather Temperatures in the high twenties to low thirties Fri. – Sun. Winds 5-10 mph Fri. and Sat. 10 – 15 mph Sunday. Slight chance of light snow Sun. morning. Partly to mostly cloudy all three days. This is a Sat./Sun. regatta, but we anticipate a good number of sailors showing up to scrub race on Friday.
Headquarters Mike & Cathy’s Good Old Days bar and restaurant right on the lake. W995 W. North Shore Dr Montello, WI 53949. Packet pickup and Saturday night group dinner will take place here. Group meal will take place immediately following racing on Saturday at 5:30 pm. Come as you are. Classic Wisco Supper Club with great bar. $14 plus tax and tip will get you Broasted chicken, beef tips over noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, soup and salad bar. MAP
Go Big or Go Home Good Old Days famous chili will be served steaming hot on the ice Saturday. We are expecting to be sharing the lake with a fair number of ice fisherman for the weekend. To show them some love, and to apologize in advance for disturbing their peace, we will be delivering 6-packs if beer to them along with our well wishes. Hard to be mad at someone delivering free beer! PLEASE go out of your way to be friendly and courteous.
Registration Get it done online at this link. PLEASE! If you must tax our scorers with onsite registration, you will be required to pay a “convenience fee” of $20. It could be a scary amount, so just get it done online. Our dedicated scoring team would greatly appreciate it. PLEASE upload your proof of insurance. If for some reason you can’t, be ready to shot it at HQ if you want to race in the event.
NOR/Sailing Instructions See above. Posted Thursday January 2, 2020.
Hotels-Motels Acorn Ridge Motel
920-295-6533 http://www.acornridgemotel.com/
(Closest to ice as Mecan Lodge is fill already)
(No pool or hot tub)
W3910 WI 23/73
Princeton, WI 54968
$69 winter rate
(Headquarters Hotel)
Borders Inn & Suites – Ripon (used to be an Americinn)
920-748-7578
1219 W. Fond du Lac St.
Ripon, WI 54971
Ask for special ice boater’s rate of $79.99 plus tax
Cobblestone (name changed today from Comfort Suites at royal Ridges)
2 Westgate Dr.
Ripon, WI 54971
920-567-4024
Ask for iceboat rate of $99 plus tax
T’ween the Lake Motel
510 Underwood Ave Hwy 23
Montello, WI 53949
608-297-8715
It Takes a Village When you see these people, thank them for their contributions to making this happen—
John Hyashi, the Nite Board of Directors and the Puckaway Ice Sailing Squadron for choosing for choosing to defer the Nite Nationals to the following weekend, opening up Lake Puckaway for the DN Westerns.
Bob Cummins and Mike Jankowski for scouting and sailing the sheet and providing detailed info.
Mike Miller and Mike Bloom for scouting our others potential venue.
Julie Jankowski for jumping into action to make all of the arrangements for hotels, food and regatta extras.
Deb Whitehorse for disseminating information and handling all registration responsibilities.
Dan Heany, Joe Norton, Fred Stritt and all members of our scoring team who will be running our races and keeping track of who does what.
All the ice scouts out there who have been feeding info throughout the week. And all others I may have forgotten (sorry) as I’m pushing to get this info out.
Daniel Hearn
Western Region Rear Commodore
US 5352
We still have one venue in play about an hour north of Madison that reportedly survived last night’s weather quite well. The snow was absorbed into the moisture on the surface and has frozen on top of the 5” of original ice. It has not formed into shell ice, but the surface is reported to be somewhat pebbly. Even now, the new layer of ice is solid under the footsteps of a 200+ lb. walker. Temperatures will be in the teens this evening, which should further firm things up. The sheet will be inspected and sailed tomorrow by a highly experienced racer and ice checker. There’s potential for a small amount of rain/show (less than 1”) on Friday. Weekend wind forecast looks very good—10-20 mph both days.
Presently, there doesn’t appear to be any other sailable ice in the region. The long-range forecast does not look favorable for forming new ice on the many lakes that returned to a liquid state or have yet to freeze. This venue will not be available to the DNs the weekend of Jan. 11-12, and after that, we are bumping up against our North American Championship, the Gold Cup, and also the Northwest and ISA for sailors who also race in other fleets. If we postpone, we’re likely off until March, and at that point, we may not get it in at all. SO, if we can make it happen this weekend with acceptable conditions, we’ll likely go for it.
Line up for the 2018 DN Western Region championship on Lake Mendota.
DN Sailors:
At this point, we appear to have limited possibilities for a Western Lakes Championship for this weekend (January 4-5, 2020). We have not ruled it out, as we have two potential venues that are moving in the right direction, but also some rain/snow potential for late in the week. We’ll continue to monitor and keep you informed. In the meantime, if you have any other possibilities, please serve them up to me (dhearnUS5352@gail.com) and Bob Cummins (rcummins@new.rr.com).
Think Ice!
Daniel Hearn
Western Region Rear Commodore
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