Who Likes It Cold?

Photo by Dennis Truett, member of the Chelsea Yacht Club, via CYC clubmate Dennis G. Moonstruck.

Who likes it cold?

Iceboaters, that's who!

Talk about a sport requiring patience. I've talked about the patience of surfers from time to time. Sailing takes patience too sometimes - especially on a boat without an auxiliary motor.

But oh my gosh, I simply can't imagine having a hobby that I might only get to indulge in once or twice a year, if that!

I've been watching the Hudson River Ice Yacht's site for the last couple of seasons. I find it interesting watching them watching & waiting for the ice to be just right. Tivoli Bay up in Dutchess County seems to be the main venue for the sport on the Hudson. I'm so glad they are finally getting some sailing in, because last weekend's report must have been SO hard for them to take! Basically, the winter had been a pretty normal one. Cold but not too cold. The ice yachts need a very specific kind of ice to do their thing - smooth, thick, and expansive. They were getting really close at one point and then we had that blizzard. Snow wrecks the ice for iceboating. So then they were back to waiting and waiting and waiting. Week before last the ice was getting back to almost there. Last Saturday, a couple of them did get out - but then there wasn't any wind in the morning & just enough to tack around a bit later. Then on Sunday and Monday it warmed up & POURED. The warm rain water flowing into the Hudson took a whole lot of the ice out Tivoli Bay & the poor iceboaters had to start their vigil all over again!

This cold snap has finally done the trick for them, and it's a glorious sunny day out there, and the winds look to be a steady 10 kts - maybe not terribly exciting but certainly enough to move a sailing craft along nicely - I bet they are having a great day up there!

Me? Off to play catch-up at work (sort of knew when I took Monday to get an extra day with TQ that I'd have to pay for it) after I do this quick post. Dennis G. Moonstruck had sent me that amazing picture (winner of the Poughkeepsie Journal's Quadricentennial Photo Contest) last week, and I'd sort of been wanting to use it on an iceboating post of some sort, and I was just about to head out when on a cold-inspired whim I checked the iceboat site & saw that they were actually SAILING today!! Woohoo!