Dear Icesailors,

This Monday we started our ice scouting tour and as today we checked two alternative sites for the 2014 DN WC/EC.

Siemianowka – where we finished the EC last year – has 25 cm of black ice with some snow ice on the top. The ice is bumpy at the launching site (the nice beach at the south-western part of the lake), but more even in the middle of the lake. If the alternate melting and freezing process will continue during the next few days the surface will be more even. We checked the ice at 10 o’clock, thus it was still hard. There are two major cracks on the northern part of the lake, one is totally frozen, the other is open a little bit (1-2 cm).  There is a big free area – about 3×5 km for setting the race course. The temperature was below 0 during the night – our car was well frozen by morning. The day time temperature is 2-5 degrees.

You can find graphical information on our tour on the Google Maps at the link:

(By clicking the icons the weather forecast, the ice conditions as well as few photos will be available.)

https://www.google.hu/maps/@52.6795008,21.24741,5z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1szVCJmWSSLKWs.kNsc0C-52hlc?hl=hu

More photos are in the blog “Due North 2014” on Tumblr at the link: http://due-north2014.tumblr.com/

Rekyvos ezeras – Our second stop was at Rekyvos Lake near Siauliai/Lithuania at late afternoon. The ice conditions are similar than in Siemianowka. Since we arrived after a relatively warm day the top of the ice was soft, having big resistance (slow ice). The Lake is fully frozen, there are no cracks on the ice. The ice surface was a little bit bumpy having a softer layer on the top (1-2 cm) and a hard core (25 cm). More info on the links above.

Now we are in Parnu. Today I will check the ice here, in Haapsalu and maybe around the Saaremaa Island.

As Jörg posted the decision will be on Thursday or even later, due to the changing weather conditions.

Stay tuned, CU on the Ice.

Attila Pataki

Vice Commodore

IDNIYRA Europe