The Caledonia yawl in my back yard was covered with a heavy frost this morning and all of the varnished ash had been turned from amber to silvery white. In the afternoon, when the I draped a tarp over the boat to protect it, I was daydreaming about waking up to a heavy frost after spending the night at anchor.It has taken me a while to appreciate the cold. Before I took to adventures in small boats, my focus was on backpacking. It started as a summer activity with my father and older sister when I was about 10 and became a solo pursuit when I was 18. I kept increasing the challenge of wilderness travel, first by stretching the distances and later by shifting, by degrees, from summer to winter. In 1997, my friend Mark and I snowshoed across the Cascade mountain range. I have a vivid, lasting memory of getting up in the middle of the night for a pee break and seeing the light from my headlamp being reflected as thousands of flickers of light, brighter than anything I’d seen reflected by snow. During the night ice crystals had grown up from the surface of the snow, each like a hexagonal golf tee of crystal, some over 2” tall, and their cupped tops reflected the light back to me. The crystalline pillars would fall over with the slightest touch—even a breath could send them knocking others over like dominoes. Deep in the woods, Mark and I found a trail maintenance shed that made a comfortable camp. The shin-length cagoule and foam-insulated booties I'd made kept me toasty warm.
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Still rowing in Maine in the winter. Secret is salting the bilge so the precipitation doesn’t freeze solid and you can shovel out the snow or soft ice. Insulated rubber mitts or gloves for bailing then switch to leather mitts with wool underneath for rowing. If you need to break skim ice, an iron-tipped pole. You get great calm days after a storm or when one is brewing.
Very nice article. It brings back memories of growing up in Duluth, MN, where you either embrace the cold or stay inside!
Wonderful stories. Hoping to do more sailing this autumn than I have in the past, in local lakes. Upside is there’ll be only a few to zero motorboats about, upsetting the water. No jet skis or motor boat wakes. On the downside, cold water and the risk of hypothermia if a capsize. Need to acquire & use either a dry suit or wet suit – not really sure which.
Gore Tex dry suit, no question. Ive pulled on enough damp wet suits to know what I don’t want. If you work up a sweat rowing or paddling, the Gore Tex vents the moisture out. Since the effect is to move moisture from the warm to the cold condition, it is even more effective in winter. But wear warming layers underneath. My preferred one is merino wool (plus more layers if it’s really cold).
I have day-paddled on frozen water (Dakota and California creeks in northern Whatcom County, WA). I was concerned the ice might damage my wooden Pygmy kayak, but no problem if the ice isn’t too thick. If your boat slides up onto the ice, your weight will usually break through it.
So glad I stumbled across this article. I thought I was the only one nutty enough to enjoy boating in ice, as compared to “iceboating”. I do enjoy both but with climate change I get fewer chances to do the later, maybe a day every 3 to 5 years here in NW Connecticut.
I have an 18′ Grumman (sorry about the aluminum!) rigged for sailing and rowing. I love breaking ice on lakes and rivers while under oar power.
In spring, exploring the open water around the edges of lakes is great fun. When my kids were small and gullible I’d take them along and follow open leads into the middle of the ice pack. Then push up onto thick ice for an ice picnic. “Pizza-on-Ice Capades” we called it
I had a beat up 15′ Grumman with a lateen rig that I didn’t mind abusing by sailing up on to ice and skittering across to the next open lead. The full-length aluminum keel made it a big, noisy ice skate.
When the wind died, I’d drop the sail, pull the mast out of the step, and use it to pole my way to open water and paddle from there.
I like Daniel’s concept of “embracing the cold.” I taught that to my kids, along with embracing the dark.