Not nice ice
Unfortunately, there’s been no improvement on the ice front. Dennis Bassano, the NALSA president and a friend from Santa Cruz, drove to the lake last weekend to see how it was and test his Class 3 ice yacht with some new skates. He reported back today and conditions are far from ideal. “There are clear patches between the drifts which are sailable for the small boats, but pretty brutal when you hit them. Definitely not speed record conditions”, he said.
As far as I know, there is no better ice elsewhere in the US right now, so no point in travelling at the moment either. So we have no choice but to sit tight at the base in San Francisco and continue to wait for things to improve.
Hi Richard,
congrats on the land speed record and to an exciting project. I do some ice sailing (skatesail + DN iceboat) in the south of Sweden and I absolutely sympathize with your quest for black, perfect ice. You probably already concluded that to break the ice record, your main problem will be to find perfect surface conditions that will coincide with favorable winds and that is a real challenge. Maybe you need to set up a Global ice reporting network and have your craft on standby for airtransport? If you do, I usually have a good grip on ice conditions in the Scandinavian region with hands on experience in southern Sweden (i fly too), so drop me a mail if you need “Ice intelligence”.
Love for Sail/ Jörgen
Comment by Jörgen — October 20, 2010 @ 5:30 pm