DN's at Lake Mush-A-Mush Club History and
Comments by Dick Vine DN 60s in Nova
Scotia. HOW IT STARTED In Fall 1969, a
few friends wondered what they would do for fun in the coming winter. All were
involved in sailing one way or another. David Hendry, who was caretaker at the
Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron’s new clubhouse on Purcell’s Cove Road invited
Lt Cdr Chris Williams and me, Dick Vine to talk and look at photos of
ICEBOATING. I had some pictures of “Skeeter” iceboats, taken on Hamilton Bay in
1954, my first winter in Canada. Other pictures of the much smaller DN60 boats
were there too. It was decided to contact
other like-minded people with building skills to make up a building
co-operative. The idea was to start winter sailing at a minimum cost by sharing
the work involved so as to have as large a fleet as possible right away. Within a few days, a list of
11 participants had joined up. The DN60 class yearbook appeared from somewhere
and the plans were enlarged and printed. Herein the FIRST mistake!!!. More on
this later. Lumber mills were explored
for clear spruce boards 12 feet long, plywood, glue and metals for skates,
fittings and wire for rigging were hunted down. The carpenter Mr. John Innes
milled the wood at BIO and the metal parts were cut out and drilled there in the
machine shop. A trip to the Paceship plant in Mahone Bay produced aluminum mast
and boom sections of suitable length from their scrap pile of broken masts. BIO
welder Fred Armitage welded the end fittings into place. 33 Skates were cut out,
the crown milled on edges and side reinforcing riveted in place. Side and bow
chocks were welded and by Christmas we were ready to assemble and glue the
hulls. Sails were ordered from Lucas Sails of Portsmouth UK, friends of Chris
and were delivered under Naval Escort. Chris Williams negotiated
heated space in the Stadacona drill hall to assemble and glue up the hulls and a
large crowd turned up over the holiday. A huge number of clamps were assembled
along with drills and other tools and away we went. All thirteen hulls and
runner planks were completed and coated with rot-proofing and lots were drawn
for the hulls. Unfortunately, much glue was spilled on the drill Hall floor and
I’m sure the Naval Cadets had a sticky time of it. All the boats went to there
new homes for painting and fitting out. By the second weekend in
January all was ready and when ice appeared on Lake Mic Mac in Dartmouth, the
fleet turned out for maiden voyages-no Champagne was spilt!!!. The learning curve was pretty
steep that weekend and dumps and spin-outs soon had us sliding over the ice but
over all, the end result was of a one-design ice-boat that was fast enough to be
scary and gave good racing. And, more important, no one got hurt. THE RACING SCENE The first year gave plenty of
ice and though we didn’t know a lot about how much was safe, major disasters
were avoided. Members were phoned and all turned up where ice was considered
safe. Dowling with red flags were the turning marks and no starting
markers were used, so it was simple to get a course into wind. From the DN year
book right of way rules were established and, by and large, adhered to. There
was only one event of broken goggles due to a disagreement that I remember.
After a few weeks, another DN turned up. Parker Beaver, of Armdale Yacht Club
arrived with his classy DN, much better built than the by this time, rather beat
up thirteen. I think Parker got started from Wooden Boat Magazine and he was the
first DNer in Nova Scotia as far as I know. Also, later on Barry Snell appeared
with a DN type hull with a longer runner plank, a springboard bow and a Soling
mast section and larger sail area. Of course it was much faster and did race but
we were not much competition for him. Some time later he did build a great DN
and has of course been a major contributor ever since. The original boats gradually
were improved, broken, replaced and upgraded under the pressure of keen
competition. New boats were built and we learned to lay back and enjoy---more
speed and fewer departures overboard. There were some strange speed differences
between boats and only when an alignment jig was built were these explained. I don’t remember when it was
that we decided to go to the Canadian Championship in Hamilton Bay but Barry,
Parker and I set off for Ontario. Barry’s tiny Toyota truck bumped along the
highways for days and through snow-drifts south of Lake Ontario. A flat was
fixed in blizzard conditions in the dead of night.
When the competition turned
up on the bay, it was immediately apparent that we were the only sailors using
the plans from the DN year book. Our boats were totally outclassed and with the
heavy traffic we didn’t do very well except that Parker was the most consistent
performer. HOW WE GOT BETTER Obviously, changes were
needed. The Gougeon plans became available and new boats were built. A new Co-Op
was formed and a set of parts was assembled in Fred Benjamin’s house. This
brought our fleet to a more modern performance level. An expedition to Lake Erie
was mounted and, again, our boats were not up to standard, also, we arrived at
Erieo on the Thursday before he regatta---one or two boats on the ice but no one
about. On Saturday we were on the ice by 0800 for an advertised start at
1000hrs----no one about till noon when it began to snow and rain. Racing started
at about 1400hrs but the Nova Scotia contingent never did find the start in the
snow. A few years later a planned
trip to Redbank NJ ended in the suburbs of New York in 18 inches of snow. The
site was revised to Wisconsin; the NS fleet spent the night with Bruce Kirby of
“Laser” fame, then departed for home. The event was finally sailed on Lake
Champlain two weeks later. This was my last away trip. JOINING UP In he late seventies we heard
of DNs on East Bay Cape Breton. Eddie Reeves and some friends were sailing on
Sydney Harbor. They appeared on the front page of the Halifax paper; we took off
for points East and sailed on East Bay at Ian Stott’s house. We also went to
another Lake near St Peters some time later. The Cape Breton contingent is still
active. By 1986 there was a new fleet
beginning to build in the Lake Mush a Mush and Mahone Bay area. Eldon Hirtle, David Beck and
others built DNs and enjoyed the thrill of hiking across the ice at 60mph and
overlapped. The Halifax fleet visited in the late ‘80s , set up a course and
after a few attempts by South Shore DNers, raced one another as usual. This was
followed by visits to the Halifax area and a few return visits. The Halifax crew
were a bit choosy about ice with holes in and a few got wet and broke stuff from
time to time, although this was not much different from the usual run of events
at home. Over the years we have all learned a good deal about the quality of ice
under the influence of salt water, sunshine, winter storms with mild spells and
still occasionally get caught out. Howard Garland’s house on Mush a Mush has
frequently hosted fun sailing to the west. The most recent ice survey reports
have included a contribution when nothing was sailable in the Halifax region.
The quality of boats at the top end of the fleet is really good and winners come
from all over. Recently, sailors with no soft water racing experience have won
the local championship. This is not that common in the sport. 