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First time on ice
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| After all the eating well and doing nothing indoors it was time for
some outdoor action. Weather was nice, -3C mild wind and sun was making
an appearance time to time. It had been -12C at night - no snow. |
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| A week ago weather looked like completely different. I think no one
would have even suspected that weather can chance so suddenly. Week ago
it was ~5C warm, but for few days it has been around -10C and rivers and
bays start to freeze. |
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| Hoverport is basically located on an island, so it was little unsure
if were to be able to even get there. After we got to ashore we decided
to try crossing the river in a boat by pushing it forward. Incase ice would
break we would still be comfortably in a boat not swimming in the hole
in the ice. |
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| Ice turned out to be strong enough to carry the boat even it cracked
some but still held. |
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| There is lot of area to be cleaned in a large
craft like Explorer i can tell you that. Cleaning it took nearly 20 minutes.
It was time to start the engine. Well, nothing happened as i turned the
ignition key to start position. Few quick checks and it was determined
that started solenoid is frozen. Luckily we had electricity close enough
and a heat gun to use. Only minimum amount of heat was needed to free solenoid
and we gave it another try. |
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| After some starting engine started to run. I now know that choke has
to be pushed off as soon as engine starts to fire on it's own. We let it
run for several minutes before even trying to release from the ground.
Last time i operated it was as said +5C or something like that and now
it was -3C. By the time we were ready for a take off engine was running
close to normal running temperature. |
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| Off we go. I had heard about hovercrafts
being difficult to operate on ice, especially on smooth ice which certainly
was the situation here. I tried to take the first turn cautiously, but
still surprised when trying to do 90 from ashore downstream. We slowly
glided to the opposite shore no matter how i tried not to. And we were
barely moving at all. I corrected the course and ended to the other side
of the river. Ice seemed to hold even though we heard it cracking and saw
some cracks appear too, but not enough to actually break the ice. |
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| I let the craft to drop off cushion, not as an emergency stop, just
to reset the situation before entering narrow passage ahead. CREEEEEEEEKKK
!!!!! What a sound, aluminium angle bar scraped the ice causing infernal
noise and we were moving at walking speed. Can't wait to scrape the ice
at cruising speed... |
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| I throttled a little bit more. Just a bit over idle we already had
a comfortable cruising speed for this environment and and i tested the
stopping. Bow ports helped some, but dropping craft off cushion caused
infernal noise and still we would slide several meters on ice. I throttled
speed up again an noticed that at certain speed we were actually breaking
the ice with huge drag wave. Ice was about 30mm (1-1/4") thick and it cracked
to large ice floes without actually exposing any water. I tried to keep
above this speed not to give any unpleasant surprises to other folks who
possibly start using the ice soon. |
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| As i started to get hang of ice operation we got to bay. Ice was ~20mm
(3/4") thick here and it indeed broke more easily. There were also open
spots here and there and we played some time around these spots. I tested
the icebreaker capabilities of my Explorer just to learn how it handles
in this environment. I did a large curve breaking the ice and tried to
follow my own trail just little bit different track. For the first time
during this operation we also noticed a wind. It actually pushed us sideways
on smooth ice when we were just about on cushion but with little thrust.
Dropping the craft on ice caused polyethylene pads to make small holes
on ice but otherwise this ice could withstand the craft. It was then when
i discovered how to go slowly on ice. I had to keep the rear pads dragging
on ice and use just enough power to otherwise lift the craft on cushion.
Basically simple, but in practice more difficult. |
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| It was time to head back. I had agreed to have a meal with my parents
and clock was ticking. On our way back we saw someone fishing on ice and
hoped that he will notice the cracks on ice we left there. We observed
him as we passed him and it seemed that he stays close to shoreline and
is not going cross our path. He however didn't seem to pay any attention
to us. We explored also a man-made canal on our way back. There is usually
so much flow in it that it doesn't freeze even during the coldest weather.
And there was indeed only a thin layer of ice there - no problem for a
hovercraft though. We also actually tried to break the ice from the narrow
passage i wrote earlier about, just to help it freeze more, but ice was
too thick for that and we didn't have proper tools to do that either. |
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| We got back to hoverport. Nothing was noticed to be broken, that's
a good thing. Nice landing although some help was needed to turn the craft
ready for next operation, which i plan to do shortly! During the early
morning of 27th it has been snowing and now we seem to have about 15cm
of fresh powder snow. Perhaps i'm taking the rest of the day off and go
hovering as it's supposed to be sunny weather later today... |