 |
| Click Photos For Caption & Larger View |
If there is an equivalent to a mad scientist’s laboratory for ice yacht builders, it can be found in the basement and garage of Dave Fortier’s home in Biddeford, Maine. Here, partially completed ice yacht fuselages and materials to build ice yachts are neatly scattered around. One of them is at an optimal level of construction that allows for a visual grasp upon what it will look when finished, while still being able to see what the basic frame looks like and how the layers of material that will become a fuselage are used. In another area there is an assortment or runner blade sets used for the differing ice conditions. Not far from there are the homemade precision tools used to build and sharpen the runner blades. In another area there are masts and materials used to construct them. Of course there are countless general woodworking tools to aid in the construction. The barn shaped garage is where Fortier’s latest project is kept. He and another ice yacht racer are each building a pair of ice yachts. When completed they will each keep one of their new boats here, and take the other two to Europe for the international championships that are held there every other year. After they are shipped there, they will leave them with local ice yachters who will store them until the next international races.
 As Fortier gives a tour of his workshop, it is ever so obvious that his passion for ice yachting is gleefully beyond fanatical. While pointing out what each area of the shop is used for, he gives in-depth explanations of how this phase or that phase of building or improvement translates into performance on the ice. Hands sometimes wave around describing direction or wind, notepad and pen come out to illustrate concepts that are difficult to verbalize, all the while his eyes are alive, dancing around in their sockets as he describes the experience of ice yacht racing and why he loves it.
The ice yacht that the vast majority of racers and cruisers use is a relatively simple design that has been around since the early 20th century, according to Doug Sharp. "The [ice] boats have been around for hundreds of years. They started in Europe, in the Netherlands I believe. The current boat that you see the most of was the result of a design contest by the Detroit News newspaper in Detroit [Michigan] for a lightweight, car topable boat that a father and son could put together in the basement and go out and campaign in on the weekends. That was the winning design in the 1930s: and that design has been around since then; and is the probably the most common and most popular, widely raced boat."
It’s a bright, warm day with a clear blue February sky. James Thieler is sitting on the fuselage of his ice yacht directing a blank stare over the vast frozen plain covering Maine’s Sebago Lake. To ice yacht racers who have traveled there from all over New England and bordering Canadian provinces, this spectacular day is feeling more like a nightmare with every passing minute. A week of preparation and anticipation is being ruined by an anemic wind. On top that, ice that was in prime condition the previous day now has about an inch of soggy snow covering it. A weak wind with good bare ice would not have been a problem, and a light snow cover would not be a problem if there were good wind. At first nature toyed with them by providing just enough wind to keep the ice yachts moving after being given a good running push by their pilots. But after the start of racing, the wind rapidly blows them off. Pilots still racing decide to abandon the controls and start pushing their yachts to the assembly area. For a band of brothers that feed on speed, this is not their idea of a beautiful day.
|
