WINGING ON MY HOME-MADE ICE BOAT, CROWNEST LAKE, 2024
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- čas přidán 24. 01. 2024
- Another great session of "Ice Winging" on the latest design of my ice boat. I perfect my jibes and learn to tack -- and deal with up to four inches of rainwater on top of over 12 inches of ice in January 2024, Crownest Lake, Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada.
Dry suit?? I hope. Unfortunately we haven't had a hard freeze on Lake Champlain or Lake Erie in the last several years. Have always wanted to try out an ice boat. Looks like so much fun! Be well.
A dry suit would have been great on this day! I got super wet! Boots filled with water! I stripped down and got changed into dry clothes at the truck! We have reliable ice here on Crowsnest Lake, and wind! And the wind scours off the snow which is a bonus for ice boating. It is at 4,500 feet elevation so even I a warm spell it usually drops below zero C at night. That rain in January is not typical. Best wishes and good luck with your weather.
Fantastic!
Thanks for the note! It was a super fun day!
I have some experience using angle iron as runner blades. My biggest problem was I had less than an inch of clearance from bottom of the blade to the wood, so almost every snow pile was stopping me. Wider angle iron would help, but it's also more expensive and heavy. I am currently working on a tiny iceboat design that uses cheap machete blades that are reinforced with plastic bolted to both sides of the blade. Last year I cut blades from iron flat bar and reinforced them with aluminum, but I am opting for the machete and plastic right now because I would like to do as little metal working as possible. It's very time consuming cutting metal with hand tools.
That's pretty cool that you are working on your designs. The clearance is definitely an issue. On my first version, I used old hockey skates, and cut the tops off and screwed them into the bottom of the boat. It gave more clearance but I had less skate on the ice. So I have two boats, one with the angle iron and one with the old hockey skates with slightly better clearance. I ended up using a belt sander with a very coarse grain to cut the edge on the cold rolled steel. I did the same thing on the old hockey skates -- it was critical to get a pointed edge, about a 90-degree bevel with the point on the ice. When I just had hockey skates with no pointed edge, I kept skidding out. All the best mate. We would all love to hear more about your designs and experiences.