The ultimate lifestyle – sailing in the summer – skiing in the winter!
Ever since I started sailing I knew that when winter hit and the temperatures drop it was best practice to pack up the dinghy and move on to other sports for the winter. There’s the classics, soccer, football and rugby. But a true sailor has always been addicted to hitting the mountains.
These are the legends and tales of our parents, cabin parties all night, fresh powder all day. Along came snowboarding to give us more options and the dual season/sport lifestyle lives.
I personally got distracted for a few years. It is amazing chasing the endless summer. Winters in Miami and Australia made skiing impossible but it did allow for an awful lot of sailing. When I was home in the winter I was always afraid to head up to the mountains and end my Olympic dreams with a serious injury of some sort.
Well those days are over, and I’ve been making up for it. It turns out that since about half way through the 2000′s snowmobiles really advanced in technology. The power to weight ratio went up to the point that now two people can ride up steeps hill on one sled.
At the same time, the engines and snowmobiles improved in reliability dramatically. Knock on wood, it’s now normal practice for a snowmobiler to leave most of his tool box at home when heading out for the day. The final piece is on the environmental front. The US began imposing strict fuel economy requirements on all sorts of recreational vehicles. As a result, all the manufacturers were forced to invest serious resources in cleaning up their act. The amount of oil required to lubricate 2-strokes went down dramatically, the fuel economy went up to the point that ski doo advertised 23 miles per gallon on their highest performing sled this year!
Well, all the justifying above doesn’t really do it justice, in reality by buddies told me it was awesome and I felt like letting loose a bit. I got my first snowomobile in the winter of 2008. About half way through the year we knew that snowmobiles weren’t equiped with great ways to carry extra equipment. We spend 2009 buying what was on the market, we weren’t impressed.
I’m pleased to announce that in 2010 we developed Port Tack Racks, http://porttackracks.com/ These snowmobile racks are designed to carry everything a snowmobiler needs. If you’re interested, check it out.