High-Speed Sailing

As a kid we lived near some small lakes close to Lake Michigan. In the winter I went ice skating on the lakes; I even made a sail and went sail-skating. I always wanted an ice boat but was too young at the time to do much about it. When I was about 12, my family moved to Los Angeles and I went surfing instead of ice boating.


I've been watching Greenbird's website for progress on the ice sailing record. I am confident Richard can do it, but he is having problems with snow and rough ice.
Richard's dilemma is that snow either covers the ice (no sailing) or the snow causes ridges on the ice (rough sailing). These problems are related, but are a bit different. I find them to be quite interesting and have been thinking about ways to resolve them.

The most direct solution would be to simply dress the ice. There are various ways this could be done including: plow off the snow and dress the ice via a mega "Zamboni", or melting the snow by various means so it re-freezes to a smooth surface. Unfortunately the area involved is so large that huge amounts of energy would be required. Eventually we will learn to command massive amounts of energy and attaining perfect ice (between snowstorms) will be easily achievable. We could pump water onto the ice, use trucks with flames or steam to melt the snow, cover the snow with black tarps (or paint the snow black) so the sun melts it, or place some large movable mirrors that reflect and concentrate solar energy to the lake's surface to melt the snow.

On an individual scale, rough ice will have to be handled by improving the ice boat sufficiently enough to tolerate a certain amount of roughness. This is do-able and I have been thinking about ways to do this (don't tell me I gotta move back to the cold frozen north country in order to have more fun). I guess the first thing I should do is find out the rules governing ice boat speed records - any of you know where to find them?

Bob