Iceboating in the "Iceboat Capital of the World"

This is a direct film transfer of the footage from ABC's Wide World of Sports for the late 60's or early 70's.  Some great old footage here. There is footage of my dad rigging Cryostat and also rounding one of the weather marks.  There is also the footage of Buddy Melges "passing" Ron Schloemer.  I say "passing" because as I remember the story being told to me Buddy is actually lapping Ron.  If you recognize anyone in these videos please post something in the comments either here or on the YouTube page and I will see if I can add it to the annotations on the clip.  Include the time in the video when you comment.  Also a special thank you to Steve and Mary Jane who go this footage to my dad when we were over at the Skeeter Haven.

The "New to Me" Mast Goes Up

Well I placed a call to Steve at Skeeter Haven to get some help with the "new to me" mast.  I needed some new side stays since the old mast's stays seemed way to long when I tried to step it while on the ice last year.  Well thanks to Steve, and to keep a long story short, I will be using a smaller hound and standard length stays. Anyway here is a picture of Cryostat with the mast up using one of Steve's shorter hounds.

Now to get back to the office and get one of the guys in the shop to make my 11" hound into 2 shorter ones.

Trailer Finished (Almost)

I have been waiting to get the mast set-up and rigged while I have been working on the trailer. That alone was no quick one-day task. It included pulling off the old trailer deck, scraping, brushing, grinding and sandblasting the frame, priming and painting the frame, rewiring the new lights, and mounting the bunks and covering them with carpet. I still have some fenders to put on the trailer and finish the connector for the wiring harness but I think I am finally ready to get to work on the mast. So this weekend it is off to Skeeter Haven to work on the mast rigging so that Cryostat can finally be sailed this winter.

First day at Lake Geneva

So the first day of the season kicked off on January 13th and Matt Mason was lucky enough to get out on the ice with the B Skeeter fleet and get some great shots.  You can check out his website here.  I cannot finished rehabbing my "New-to-me-Mast" quickly enough.

Let the sanding begin

The first of the year was a perfectly cold day to be prepping and sanding the mast.  Surprisingly the coldest part of the work was running my hand down the mast after the sander.

The sanding and prepping has revealed that there may be some glass work in the future for the mast.  It appears that the fiberglass that was wrapped around the tip of the mast has delaminated after about 20 years in the rafters of the previous owners building.

Also I need to get new hog stays made for the mast as my current ones don’t match up to the mounting position on this mast. And hopefully I will be able to find a workable solution for the mast step and not need to have something casted.