TRINITY'S 1st Annual 2010/2011 Icing/ Anchoring Challenge

[Terry]

                  Ending date will be very contingent upon early spring weather. Here in the Cities the end of March will typically be pretty close. Young Joe, Dave Torry and I hit the NW corner of Harriet on a sunny 51 degree day March 27th last season, as our final dip. "Open water" that day varied from 2-3' to 20' out from shore, the ice was now black and pourous. You could stand on the ice but it would slowly submerge if you stood in one spot too long. We could break this ice (while in the water) up to about 4" thick, but after that it was sound enough to crawl out upon. The police showed up, curious as to what we were doing, we were just stretching out our lines to see how sound the ice was, 400' out. At 400' the ice was sound enough to not submerge under a standing weight of 150 pounds. Interesting how ice forms from the shoreline out in the late fall and dissapears from the shoreline out in the early spring. I think as you headed north you could follow the DNRs changing dates to remove fish houses (with a month added) to give you the end of icing season, plus or minus based on that years weather.
                    As I seem to recall from the first ice dive this season that Steve and I did in Prior Lake, the military's formula for supporting weight on ice,,,,the square root of the tonnage times 4 equals the thickness of clear ice needed. Steve and I each weigh 150 pounds, as tons .075 ton/each, as square root .273861 times 4 equals 1.095 inches, we could walk on the ice but it would crack with every step. I remember the ice being 1 1/4" to 1 1/2" thick maybe up to 2" (the pics are shown early in the challenge here, with Steve holding a piece edgewise) Once you put gear on (adding 75 to 100 pounds) the ice wouldn't support us, and we broke thru. This formula sounds exceedingly conservative, in that my 3/4 Silverado would only require 6.45 inches, YIKES!, a 36 ton (thats 90% fully loaded) 18wheeler requires 24" just over what we have right now,,, wouldn't want to feel, that ice crack. Then again its not like the military is paying for their own losses.
                     As the icing season/ 1st challenge, "melts away" it it will be interesting to see a few things,,,,, like the total number of anchors found, (my guess 165) how late a icing dive we can do, (my guess 4-3-11) how many reads this thing actually gets, (my guess 10,500,, by 4-3-11), that amazes me that were over 8700 already, if the great anchor finder John (Scubbie) Oliver can be stopped, (my guess, No  :'(  ) if my buddy Steve can put Nate behind him, my guess, Yes! ,,,,, hopefully anyway, so we dont have to eat crow all summer.
                     I have enjoyed the run here, I thank you all!      TRINITY