...which may seem odd, but really is quite necessary. Especially when there's a new boat in the fleet. A missing pin here, the wrong kind of bolt there, shrouds too slack, runners out of alignment—and that sort of thing, Fix it now, or miss the first day or two of sailing, which in iceboating may be the only days of sailing.

And it's difficult to do this sort of thing this time of year. Today, although the weather was mild, the amount of daylight was decidedly limited.

There are lots of variables in iceboating—mast rake, shroud tension, mast bend, runner alignment, runner sharpness, plank flexion, sail cut, batten tension, race weight—not to mention the cut of your jib. So it does behoove one to get set up ahead of time.