PORN - Stern Steeer Iceboat

[brian.cunningham]

This boat is beautiful!
It even has a little transom. smile.gif

http://www.iceboat.org/Images/ActionPhotos/02-03%20photos/krisshorizontalcloseupB_small.jpg
bigger picture (http://www.iceboat.org/Images/ActionPhotos/02-03%20photos/krisshorizontalcloseupB.jpg)

[TimH]

Iceboating must be great fun. A friend of mine back in Michigan had DN in his pole building. Never used it much though. Usually too much snow on the ice.

[Ken Hutchins]

That sure looks a lot like the one in the Herreshoff museum. Yes ice boating is fun had a DN myself about 30 years ago, got too much snow several years in a row so got into sled dogs, then we had several years with almost no snow after I sold the DN. :mad:

[Leon m]

That is one of the finest looking iceboats
I have ever seen Brian.

Speaking of snow on the ice...I've often wondered
if anyone has ever tried to put skis on an ice
boat,or maybe designed a sailing vessel for skiing
on snowy lakes...?

[brian.cunningham]

The one for sale in the current WB issue talks about deep snow runners, I asked over on the iceboat mailing list, but noone had any info.

[Rogue Sailor]

Nice boat! Are those body bags? :D

[J. Dillon]

Nice pix Brian, especialy the enlarged version.

I'd like to experiment with a sailing bike.

Did make a sailing wagon years ago for the "kids". Used bicycle wheels with a fwd. steering arrangement. It was not as fast as an ice boat but one windy day in the parking lot of Orchard beach NY just to the N. of City island we got her to go 25 MPH with a car behind to get the speed. Still got the scene on 8mm home movies.

The land yachts today go much faster.

JD

[Dave Forsman]

The following is a small iceboat I built for my son. Like most iceboats, you will spend far more time building (and rebuilding) them then ever sailing.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid91/p614b154403b0408dbe31c726b0878d14/fa5d54f8.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid91/p3facff88165823ff34646611b18f4309/fa5d5671.jpg

I was interested in lateen rigged a-frame rigged iceboats and thought building a small one would be fun. The a-frame takes the compression load of the rig and transfers it down to the outboard ends of the plank.

The biggest problem with small stern steering iceboats is their lack of weight. It makes it easy to push around, but seems prone to want to flicker. That is when the rear steering runner looses bite on the ice and you end up spinning in circles. Last winter we did two and one half circles with two of us on board and didn't rip off the runner chocks or hurt the boat in any way so I guess it was built strong enough. The steering runner needs to be kept real sharp.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid91/pd89bbc3957bd61605a4dbfc7888dae8c/fa5d403e.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid91/pf3a69c1cf0bdda2754ff6b0dc3062efe/fa5d4051.jpg

I went through a lot of design iterations before I decided on what to build as I have been down this path before. The rough model with the sail was used to get an understanding of the kinamatics of the rig. The other model was used to develop the asthetics of the hull. This was modeled on Pro/ENGINEER for you CAD types and printed on a Z-Corporation 3-D printer.

This boat uses DN runners and chocks. I made the sail in the traditional way with hand roped edges with rattails and all the grommets are made of twine or line and hand sewn. There was a little cheating in the sense that the sail was machine stitched and the lines for the large corner grommets have brass liners.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid91/p44169ecfb6e5544c53a83085531db45c/fa5d4047.jpg

[brian.cunningham]

Nice job Dave! http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gif

[brian.cunningham]

Originally posted by Leon m:
That is one of the finest looking iceboats
I have ever seen Brian.

Speaking of snow on the ice...I've often wondered
if anyone has ever tried to put skis on an ice
boat,or maybe designed a sailing vessel for skiing
on snowy lakes...?Here ya go!
http://www.isabella-iceboat.com/mvc-007f.jpg
http://www.isabella-iceboat.com/mvc-004f.jpg
from this page:
http://www.dataphone.se/~isabernd/iseng.html

[Leon m]

Great... Thanks !

[Dan McCosh]

As a note on the handling of stern-steering iceboats: They do,in fact tend to spin out if the steering runner loses grip. A front-steerer can likewise lose traction with the front runner, which results in it skidding off downwind, rather than ground-looping.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I've never had the bow runner of my bow-steerers side-slip, even when the addition of the springboard lessens the downforce on the bow significantly. With dull runners or out-of-alignment rear runners, the stern will skid sideways, which is very scary and something you generally fix pronto, but the bow usually sticks pretty well.

On either bow or stern steerers you can rake the steering post (shaft of the steering rudder) about five degrees (with it's lower end away from the boat's center) to get the runner to lean slightly into a turn, giving it more bite.

[brian.cunningham]

Todd, what did the old stern steerers use for rudder bushings/bearings?

[Todd Bradshaw]

B.C. Most of them just bored a hole down through the backbone for the shaft of the steering rudder's chock and then attached sturdy metal plates to the top and bottom of the backbone to keep the force from widening the hole in use. I've seen a couple drawings where the hole was lined with a metal tube, but most are not. This drawing shows a pretty typical rudder installation and is from the book "Ice-Boating" by Herbert L. Stone (MacMillan 1922).
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid92/p28fd29ee3c2bc5f6a13f478ccea8a8ac/fa57347b.jpg

The runner is an oak body, usually having a cast iron blade bolted-on through the body from above. A single through-bolt holds the runner into the forked lower end of the steering chock. The chock has a round shaft above the fork which passes through the plates on the top and bottom of the wooden backbone and through the hole in the wood. The very top of the shaft (where the tiller attaches) is square-sectioned and the tiller has a matching, square hole in it to lock onto the shaft. They may have put a little grease on the shaft, but probably didn't need to. Steering motions on iceboats (especially those somewhat prone to "spinning out") are usually VERY subtle compared to summer sailboats and friction on the steering shaft is generally not a problem.

[brian.cunningham]

Thanks!