Ice Ice Sailing

[arnoldaszlt]

yea ice ice baby but you have brakes ?

[grezzbop]

magnificent!!!!!!!

[skiffsailorwannabe]

and what did you use to bult the platform to the skies?

[SageSzkaStuart]

holy crap that ice is beautiful!

love the music hah

[windsurfhardcore]

How hard is it to turn on these skis? I don't see you doing this muah like a snofer or snowski. I'd like to build one.

[prybarczyk]

I can turn my ice-board by shifting the weight on each foot which changes the center of effort. But it doesn't turn sharp and it can't do jibes or tacks. When I get to the end of a run, I just hop off and turn it around. So I need a big patch of ice to make that fun. Check out my other ice sailing video to see the skateboard type of ice- board (which I don't own). They use actual skateboard trucks and can jibe and tack quite well, and are more fun on smaller patches of ice.

[gwardo1]

OK, I've gotta ask. What happens when the wind dies out? I windsurf on a smallish pond in Maine, and have been thinking about this, but our wind is unsteady at best. So really leaning into a gust that cuts out immediately is a possibility..... Also, are those just skis attached to a platform with the mounting hardware on it? No skates or anything like that?

[prybarczyk]

Hi. The wind is pretty unsteady here too. Fortunately ice has such low resistance, you don't need to lean much like on water. So it's pretty easy to handle gusts and lulls. Just DON'T use a harness, else you might get slammed. Twice the speed of the wind is easy. The board is made from regular old (straight) snow skis angled 30 degrees. The ski edges track just fine. Be sure to leave the edges concave so that the front and back are making the most contact, otherwise the board can get unstable.

[gwardo1]

Sweet. I was curious how the skis came into effect, what with edges on the sides and not straight down like on skates. Are you able to use it on hard snow as well due to the skis?

[Klattu]

Amazing to us down south...GPS speed?

[prybarczyk]

Hi. My buddy has a GPS that clocked us at 25-30 MPH last year. On clean smooth ice with a decent rig, it's pretty easy to get going 2X the speed of the wind. Mainly depends on conditions and bravery. Great fun though! ;-)

[LinearBob]

Years ago I lived in northern Illinois, and I still remember skating across a frozen lake with racing skates. This video brought back memories of those days. Where I lived, there usualy was enough wind to make the lake surface rough when it froze. Did you have a warm day followed by another freeze to make that lake as smooth and glossy as it appears?

And yes, I'm sure that day's wind sailing was both fun and very cool!

[prybarczyk]

Two weeks prior, the temp was close to 70. Then we had about a week of extreme cold, followed by an upper 30's weekend when we took this video. That area in the middle (only 100-150 yards wide) was glass smooth black ice about 4-5 inches thick. It was almost scary at first, since it looked so much like open water at times.

[prybarczyk]

Thanks. We did have a great deal of fun that day.

[Sixstringwiley]

that looks like so much fun.. Very cool