16th Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War

Corporal Krispa and his squad insisted on a wind blocking wall in addition to a super secret launching device that was described by it's inventor as "None of your beeswax! Now find me some duct tape."

LT somehow got hold of an old ice tongs and, also equipped with a chain saw, went about harvesting blocks of ice from the lake to build an ice wall.

Each block layer was carefully flattened with the saw to assure a tight fit of the next block. The lifting of the almost 100 lbs block did not look fun, but the result was cool. He went with the traditional form based wall for a wind break behind the ice wall.

This fort will still be around during ice-out.

As the sun quickly set, the air temperature began to fall and rockets started to get unwrapped.

The event was planned to start at around 6:30 pm but the first shots were fired just after 7:00 pm.

All the forts put out heavy fire during much of the war.

The wind was about 5 mph from south to north. This enabled those forts firing from south to north to have very good range. The range from north to south suffered.

The entire fight lasted just over one hour.

During it's peak, there seemed to be a rocket whistling, ffftttting, or reporting continuously.

I estimate close to 2000 rockets were launched. Far from a world record, but establishing a Lake Lucerne record.

The cloudy and cold (6°F) great stick pickup was well attended the next morning.

Some of my 400+ shots managed to make it to SS Jimmy's wall. Many more of his shots, with the aid of the wind, made it to our's.

A few managed to hit LT's wind break wall.