The Ideal Winter Windsurf Quiver

As I live in the land of ice and snow, this is NOT your traditional windsurf quiver. Nor are the boards your traditional windsurf boards. Luckily windsurf bases, extensions, masts, booms and sails are the same windsurf sails.

It took me some time to realize it was practically impossible to have one sled do it all. Let's start with the ice... There are MANY levels of ice compatibility. Here in Montreal we rarely get smooth or black ice. The iceratz of the New England states have a rating system for ice conditions. Let me see if I can find it ....

It is from Jeff Brown, who is a speed maniac of the iceratz fame and i will post some of his videos here too...

Grade 1 = 2 to 4 inch drifts - sailable, but ...
Grade 2 = Corn Snow Surface requires big winds
Grade 3 = Mixed Bag of rough ice, deep snow, etc
Grade 4 = Hard Ice with snow patches which can be sailed through or around
Grade 5 = Hard Snow Ice with random lumps
Higher than this ... it is quick smooth !!!
Grade 6 =Smooth White Ice - snow slushed n froze
Grade 7 = Hard Grey of Black Ice with random roughness
Grade 8 = smooth White Ice - has many air bubbles and degrades quickly with melting
Grade 9 = downgraded Black Ice - may have hit melting and gone back down
Grade 10 = Black Ice and perfect conditions

here is a PDF with these details ...
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=24A66D5FF157BE39&resid=24A66D5FF157BE39%21342&app=WordPdf

So, for the ideal ice conditions, one do people use ??

There are many variations of what is called the Hiberna sled.

image from chillstylestore.com

It is basically a board on blades. People make many variations of this. Underneath is a mechanism or setup like the skateboard trucks. This allows the board to be tilted and the kit will turn. People practice laydown jibes, duck jibes, etc , etc...

The snowfer with the ice blades is supposed to be good on ice too, but since I will discuss it later on, I will just give it a mention here...

Also, how often does one have ice with NO snow ??

Or even smooth ice for that matter...

Here is it VERY rare...

Thus the next set of conditions seems to be the less than ideal. One has  the lake or river surface, but the ice is not perfect or there is packed snow no good for blades... Sounds like we never get better than a grade 3 here !!!

Long angled skis seem to work best for these kind of conditions.
These are the types of boards used.
Maneuverability seems to start to suffer, but I have seen and heard of people jibing their sleds...
George says he has NO issues duck jibing his WindSki which comes from around the 80's. His skis are also angled the other way ....

My homemade sled

George of Rhode Island has a WindSki

For a while I was trying this sled which is based on Claude Belanger's and Langis Caron's, but I took off the front snowboard - felt i did not need it and Claude was shortening his models too ...

Feodor of Scandinavia says there is a Russian influence for wider sleds:

So far we have seen ice can have many conditions and snow starts to complicate issue. Obviously there are many types of snow depending on temperature and depths depending on the winter.

George has recently purchased a Snowfer and feels it works great in deep snow !! I was somewhat surprised because I had heard this model was good on the ice and not so much on the deep snow ...

He has one board for each of the conditions mentioned... deep snow, ideal ice conditions and less than ideal ice with perhaps a little snow ...

Unfortunately there are NOT any videos on the NET with people windsurfing in DEEP snow. For me that means 6 inches and more snow...

Don't know what this photo op was all about ??

Natashamagazine.com

or this one ?? using the idea that it is a male market and sex sells ??

oops - another one bites the dust

Wanted to post a snowfer video just the same ... butt found none #$%^&* that were acceptable !!!

No matter what people are doing - how successful, how fast/slow, it is FUN to be out and testing the conditions :-)

There is actually an organization that holds races annually. 

It is called WISSA and stands for Winter Ice and Snow Sailing. 

Okay, it is actually World Ice n Snow Sailing :-) 

check them out :  http://www.wissa.org/p/about-wissa.html

Since the subject of racing has come up - speed is of the essence. Check out Jeff Brown doing some record breaking speed runs in 2015 !!!

Did not discuss the other windski which was one ski with a platform above - NOT seen nor heard about much here ...

check this site too: http://www.winterwindsurf.com/clasification-of-constructions-for-winter-sailing/

I keep forgetting my buddy from out west in the USA : fostersailfaster in Oregon ...

He has a modified wide water ski with a platform that he uses on snow ...

and here he is in action ...

and he has made it into the local newspaper ...