Saturday 1st February, 2003

A Good Sheet of Ice

With the Windjet ice vehicle now stationed in Thunder Bay (Ontario), it is simply a case of waiting for the right wind and ice conditions to begin the assault on the 143 mph (229 km/h) ice sailing World Record.

			In order to cover large amounts of territory very quickly, a light aircraft was chartered to survey Thunder Bay and the surrounding area, looking for the best ice.
	a view from the air

The snow that fell on the Bay in the last week of January was not good news for the Windjet team as such snow falls ruined the surfaces at Ghost Lake and St. Mary's Reservoir in Alberta, however on closer inspection the snow has remained light and fluffy and should clear with a strong wind.

Although the Thunder Bay area does contain a number of serious pressure ridges (cracks in the ice sheet), the sheer size of the Bay means that there are plenty of areas between the cracks which would allow Windjet plenty of room to make a high speed run.
		jenkins surveys the ice

The area chosen for the initial test runs is a continuous ice sheet around 18 miles (29 km) long by 10 miles (16 km) wide - to give you some idea of the size of this ice sheet, in land configuration the Windjet vehicle is capable of breaking a World Speed Record on a strip 2 miles (3.2 km) long by 55 yards (50 m or 0.05 km) wide.

Some data will be posted soon following initial testing - watch this space.

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