I took my boat out on Lake Kegonsa in Wisconsin on Saturday. There were a number of boats on the ice and all were going well. I rigged my boat with my friend Dan and off I went. And I did go, but, not as fast as I wanted to go. I think that my downhaul was insufficient. How do you get a good downhaul? The rope I used was attached to the mast base and it had a loop in it. I threaded it up through the eye at the bottom of the sail and then through the loop in the rope and pulled up. I couldn't get it to pull very far but since I was a first time skipper on this boat, and only the second time in my life on any iceboat, I thought it would be better not to go too fast. The outhaul could have been a problem also. I didn't pull it out very far. I did go about 20 mph (a guess) but the DN's were going a lot faster. My sail is a 5.9 square meter sail. Hey, I still had a hard time keeping the grin off my face. I want to go faster though. The ice was great. No snow on it and smooth as glass except in some small areas. My question? How do I get the downhaul and out haul tighter? How tight should it be? Thanks for any help.

Only doing 20 mph sounds like something was not right unless it was fairly light winds in which case, you had way too small of sail and an improper (ie, not enough) downhaul can also have a big effect.

Im typically using three sails: 9.0, 6.7 and 5.7. I rarely use the 5.7 unless it is REALLY blowing (ie, usually well over 30 mph winds). The 9.0 is maybe a little bit large but I havnt seen anything else using a sail that will go in lighter winds "yet" (maybe a kite with ice skates?).

Its likely that you need a larger sail - something in the 7.5 to 8.5 m**2 range and then give it a fair amount of downhaul. At the bottom of the mast, you should be using a mast base extension with a 6:1 or so pulley arrangement (shown on this site) http://www.chinooksailing.com/extensions.html and Ive also been using a "rig winch" http://www.chinooksailing.com/components.html to get a lot of downhaul in the sail.

However, even with that, my experience is that you can get close in speed to an average DN but probably not faster - in the wind regions where the DN does well. I have probably the fastest Ice Flyer in Denver (in general, I occasionally get beat by other ice flyers in certain conditions) with a 9 foot nicely foiled beam and a nicely working adjustable outhaul and with the 9.0, Im fairly close to the one or two DN's out here but Id guess I would get beat in a race and they are a littel faster up wind. However, once I get enough wind to go to the 6.7 (which I probably wouldnt swap until about 12 - 15 mph and above winds), my boat starts to get pretty darn fast but Ive never had the oportunity to see what a DN can do in higher winds. By the time I get to the 5.7, my experience has been that very few other boats will be sailing (except ice flyer's) so who knows.. but my speeds are more like over 60 mph rather than 20.

I hope I havnt said anything bad about DN's because I think they are great little boats and fast as heck and the racing structure is well established (something I wish there was for ice flyer's - that aspect is a lot of fun and huge plus for the DN). Its good to have a choice however and while I dont think the ice flyer is as fast, it seems to have huge wind range and is exceptional on both the light and heavy wind sides (even if you only use one sail with it) and I usually get a lot of time sailing it because of the range and its very comfortable for me (but of course, the plug for the glass body mold was tweeked for my back).

wh

Rick,
Check out this link http://www.star-board.com/school/read.asp?ID=71 on sail rigging by Roger Jackson - look for the longest post. He does a nice job of explaining how to tune a windsurfing sail. I agree with Wally that your sail was probably not rigged right. I adjust my downhaul and outhaul before I put the sail on the boat.

I bought an Iceflyer last year (thanks Wally!). I got it up to 32mph with a cheap 5.5 sail in 8-12mph winds on Lake Como in Wisconsin. I'm sure I could have gone faster than that but for my first time out 32mph was scary fast! I also have a 6.7 and 9.0 - I can't wait to try them.

Where do you live? I'm near Chicago and usually sail around Lake Geneva WI. I'll probably head up to the Madison area sometime this year too. Maybe we could hook up. If you want to email me remove the x's from my email address.

P.S. If you havn't seen this already, here's a great web site for ice boating around Madison: http://www.iceboat.org/hot_information.htm

A couple more things (that you probably already know..)

The windsurfing sail is fully rigged before being put on the boat. You first insert the mast into the sail. On some sails, you can insert the mast with the cambers on, some sails its easier if the cambers are not on (cambers are the assemblies at the end of the battens which interface with the mast).

Once you insert the sail into the mast, you install the mast extension at the bottom. This is usually a AL tube that fits in the inside of the bottom of the mast and allows for variable extension with some sort of movable ring or stop and it also has a pulley arrangement at the bottom. You set the mast base at the proper extension lenght (trial and error) and thread the downhaul rope to pulley arrangment on the sail or through the gromet. In general, you want to get at least a 4:1 purchase on this or more.

If your sail rigs easier with the camber inducers not on the mast, then before you tighten the downhaul, put on the boom and tighten the outhaul. Then the cambers will usually be easy to pop on.

Now downhaul the sail (this is sometimes where the trial and error comes in on the mast base extension adjustment). The sails generally need a whole lot of downhaul so that the top of the sail gets a little floppy and this is where the pulleys on the mast base come in handy. You really need to pull on the downhaul so if you dont have a "rig winch", you generally need to sit down, put one foot on the base of the mast and tug away. You also want the bottom of the sail to come near the bottom of the mast base extension so that the rig sits as low as possible on the boat.

In general, the outhaul is used to adjust the fullness of the sail and you should play with this while out sailing either by adjusting the lenght of the boom and at some point, putting on a adjustable outhaul on the boat (definately adds range and performance to the sail).

Note the the downhaul is all put into the sail BEFORE the sail is put on the boat.

Another problem for not getting going in light wind is runner alingment and the rear runners need to be "very" parrellel or the boat wont get going. On good ice, you should be able to move the boat with a gentle nudge if the runners are alignted well.

Sail size (in general...)

8.5 m**2 - range is probably 3 mph to 30 mph winds, optimum speed at about 5 - 8 mph winds. You need to adjust the outhaul to get good performance out of the sail over this range (fuller in light winds or higher drag ice, flatter in higher winds or low drag ice)

6.0 m**2 - range is probably 10 to 40 mph winds, becomes faster than the 8.5 at maybe 12 to 15 mph winds.

Anyone know a good solution for disabling all the pop-ups that come up with this service %#*&@@...

wh.