26th Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War

January 23th through 29th

The thaw continued into the start of last week. This was welcome. Warmer Winter weather keeps the men happier, makes the snow sinter better, and brings tapping season just that much closer. The only complaint we had with last week's weather was the near total lack of sun.

Hover Squirrel! Siting one of these rare ground-effect/mammal hybrids is considered good luck by many.

Last Wednesday, forms were pressed into service and the building of forts began. The January thaw had taken a toll on the snow that had been a foot thick just a week before. There was a quarter of an inch of snow on top of a three inch snow/ice sheet. Then a water layer with lake ice under that. Full shovels were extremely heavy with a water/snow/ice mix, but the resulting walls were very solid.

Due to a shortage of skilled workers in the Southern forts camp, Northern workers were conscripted to start their walls.

The forms grew heavier with ice build up after each segment. After the last wall section was cast, the forms were reported to have weighed well over two tonnes. That was just an estimate. It should be noted that this number was not verified by a sober third party with a scale.

The South's fort ended up with 6 Krispa class launchers in three clusters, polycarbonate view ports, and a Hi-Top™ wall element. Truly, this was going to be a rampart to be reckoned with

Embedded into the South fort's walls were red and green ice jewels giving the citadel a more holly, jolly feel.

The North's fort ended up with 3 Hi-Top™ wall elements, a wind wall, and an enormous amount of launchers. The North's "Fort of the Line" outgunned the South's 3 to 2 and out manned the other bastion 2 to 1. With no time to draft the winners of last year's ice-in contest, the South had to rely on its gunnery skills and superior aesthetics.

Peace negotiations broke down when the South demanded that the North pay for their own wall and the North refused. The outgunned and outmanned South foolishly responded to the North's intransigence with a full volley of rockets. The 2017 campaign was on.

The North quickly responded.

Ranging shots grew closer and closer as the fight proceeded.

The South's fort lost one launcher to a very effective shot and had two launchers degraded due to torch failure.

The Automatic camera controller worked well. Twenty second exposure times at f3.5 seemed about right. Almost 5,000 rockets were fired in just over half an hour.

The next morning it was discovered that, amazingly, some of the shots had lodged into the solid ice walls.

The 2017 Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War was spirited and well fought. The bar night that followed the struggle was well attended and less explodey. Our thanks to everyone who participated and made it one of the best ever. With the Annual Bottle Rocket War in the books, thoughts turn to ice-out. On Sunday, the temperature dropped along with some snow. Ice-out is not going to occur anytime soon. We'll get the 2017 ice-out contest up in a week or three. Lake ice thickness reports will be coming just as soon as our ears stop ringing.<br><br>-Nemo "Icewall" Jackson is suing for peace.