Any other iceboaters here?

[Sylvester]

Just wondering if I'm the only one.
For those who haven't seen one or don't know about them here is a place to see what they are.
http://www.neiya.org/
The New England Ice Yacht Asoociation.

A lot of of them are homebuilt wood/epoxy construction and speed can be 4 to 5 times the speed of the wind on some boats with good ice conditions.
They need mostly bare ice or very little snow so the sailing season can be very short between getting enough ice but no snow.

Anyone else here sail on solid water?

Syl.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

I wanna :D

[djn]

We have a number of members here at the North Star Sail Club that race the Detroit News class on Lake St. Clair. I would like to buy one and race with them but my list for Shady Lady is too long to divert funds from it to ice boating. Here is one for sail on eBay...I don't know this person.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Classic-DN-Iceboat-for-sale_W0QQitemZ120185176854QQihZ002QQcategoryZ63729 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://i19.ebayimg.com/03/i/000/c5/06/1c38_1.JPG

[Todd Bradshaw]

We sail an Arrow (side-by-side fiberglass 2-seater). We're not as hard-core as many of the iceboaters around here who travel all over the midwest on a weekly basis chasing good ice, but when we do get decent ice locally, we're usually out there. There's nothing like it.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bucqL99vgcA

[bamamick]

Is that kinda like a gravy boat?

Mickey Lake

[Bill R]

I wanna be. Does that count?

[Hughman]

There was an article in WB some months back -last year, even.

The author lives across the street. He would be happy, enthusiastic! to introduce you to the madness!

[bamamick]

several years ago, and how the DN dudes would follow the ice from place to place, sending out scouts all over looking for the right kind of ice to race on. For someone such as myself, who has only seen snow a couple of times, it was all very fascinating.

Jablonski is the same guy who is scheduled to drive UITG's boat in AC33 if they ever actually have that one.

Mickey Lake

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

http://www.hriyc.org/

Hudson River Ice Yacht Club

Preserving and Sailing the Historic Gaff Rigged Ice Yachts of New York's Hudson River Valley

http://www.hriyc.org/twobig.jpg

I'm joining :D

[paladin]

never dunnitt on ice.......but put wheels on it and run in on a lake bed of hard pan has the same effect......that's what got me started on soft water......early 50's.....

[bamamick]

it was in the parking lot at a football stadium. It was a kick, but it wasn't something I'd do on a regular basis. This guy bought one down for several of us to try as a demonstration.

Mickey Lake

[paladin]

yup.....My mommy threatened to dust of my jeans more than once because her remark to dad was I was doing 60 miles an hour when I crashed and tore the butt outta my pants......several times......built the unit with the help of an uncle and granddad from an old copy of Mechanix illustrated or popular science monthly from the 30's and 40's.....:D...and the side loads will absolutely collapse 20 inch bicycle wheels....

[Ken Hutchins]

Been there, done that,:D:D DN Sail number 1763.
I got way too many projects.:rolleyes:

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

When I was a kid, there were a couple of old time ice boats at the Kingston Yacht club... wooden frames with a Gaff main, and a jiboom on the headsail... and they were BIG!! Probably 20 feet long with the ability to have three people in the cockpit. I always thought they were way cool..:)

[Todd Bradshaw]

There are still quite a few big old stern-steerers racing in the midwest, a few approaching the 50' LOA range. They're pretty impressive boats. Most of them have been upgraded to more modern rigs and currently are fully-battened, fairly high-aspect Marconi sloops. In some ways, it bugs me to see a 100 year-old boat with a modern rig and lime-green paint, but for quite a few of them they can make a case that it's simply been a series of continuous improvements over the long life of the boat.

The Hudson River fleet, on the other hand, has several big old boats which have been restored to vintage configuration - mostly gaffers with club-footed jibs and at least one which uses a big lateen hung between the legs of a bi-pod mast. I believe the largest one in that fleet is still "Jack Frost" at 50' LOA and weighing around a ton. It's the big gaffer in the photo that Joe posted and was restored to beautiful condition about 15 years ago.

Of the various you-tube iceboat videos, this one strikes me as the most realistic one I've seen in terms of portraying the look and sound of sailing a small-to-medium-sized iceboat in most conditions. Unless you happen to get perfect ice, that covered-wagon sort of rumble and the runners scraping when you turn sharply are very typical of what you'll hear while sailing. As the boat picks up speed the rumble diminishes or smooths-out and you start to get more wind noise from the sail and rig. Watch it on a laptop, sitting in a freezer with a fan blowing on you and have somebody throw ice chips at you and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's really like. Most of the other videos have too much wind noise on the microphones to sound realistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03pbbCjOjJg

[Timo_N62.9_E27.7]

How about getting serious and some crew?
http://www.jakobstadsbatvarv.multi.fi/verksamhetsbilder%2085-/papagena.jpg

[wetstuff]

Back in early 70's ..I lived in Ephriam up in Door County Wisconsin while working for SAIL magazine. I sailed a little metal framed iceboat (forget name), plus a DN and barn-found a dipping-lug rigged boat that looked like a sleigh fishermen would use to go out on the ice in the 20's. I donated the 'Sail Sleigh' - I believe it was called - to the local historical society. Have not been back in 35yrs. I row and kitesurf now ... no reliable ice where I am in Maryland, but iceboating is certainly thrilling.

j i m
salisbury

[willmarsh3]

I went ice boat sailing in Shrewsbury, NJ in early 1994 I think. It was a DN boat. What a blast! I'd go sailing around the bay for a bit as if I'm cruising. The wind was around 12 knots. I got the boat going at a pretty good clip - eye balling it about 30 knots. The apparent wind was a full gale. The wind chill factor was significant so after about 15 minutes I'd return and let the next guy use it.
The folks there warned about the Christmas trees put out to mark the bad spots in the ice so I stayed away from those.
I took the boat out one last time for the day and went further than I had before. I finally got ready to return home and I went up a finger of the bay that turned out to be the wrong one. I did a u turn and started back out. Next thing the ice cracks under the boat and the boat comes to a screeching halt. Then it starts to list. I decided to step off the boat and back on to what I thought was good ice. I broke through. Fortunately the water was only waist deep. I stepped on some more ice and broke through. After a couple of steps I got to good ice and walked ashore. One of the neighbors saw me and gave me a ride back to the house I was staying at. I had been soaked up to my chest. My host insisted that I change clothes, warm up in the shower, and then sit by the fire place and drink whiskey. I felt bad about the incident so I offered to help rescue the boat but they wanted me to stay put. They spent 45 minutes carefully disassembling the boat and pulling the pieces ashore or so I'm told.
I was also told that the spot where I broke through was where the storm drain let out into the bay. The day before it was open water so the must have not had time to put a tree there.
I would definitely go ice boating again but needless to say don't care too much for breaking through the ice.

[Dan McCosh]

Current ranking world DN champion Ron Sherry is a member of our sail club, and he also makes boats. I sailed iceboats years ago, but waiting for the right combination of ice and wind proved too tedious. It provided the fastest sensation of speed I've ever experienced. Like flying a foot in the air.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Well, a warmer than average weekend gave me a chance to get ahead of the curve for a change. I stuffed the kayaks up in the loft, converted the trailer over from kayak bunks to iceboat bunks and managed to find all the pieces for the iceboat. It only took about an hour and a half to remember how to put the darned thing together and clean most of the dust off, but shaking it down is certainly more pleasant at forty degrees than at ten degrees. It's not even December and I'm officially ready to go - which probably guarantees that we won't have any decent ice this year.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20002%20copy.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20011%20copy.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20006%20copy.jpg

[JimD]

It looks cold:

http://www.youtube.com/w/?v=8MitUiKdFbY

[Bruce Hooke]

I'm not an ice-boater (it would be fun to try sometime), but I feel an affinity with that crowd because I love ice skating on natural ice, so I watch the NEIYA site for information on where there is good ice, and I have a pretty finely tuned sense for when it has been cold enough to produce good ice, which I'm sure is true of most good iceboaters too.

[Dan McCosh]

Well, a warmer than average weekend gave me a chance to get ahead of the curve for a change. I stuffed the kayaks up in the loft, converted the trailer over from kayak bunks to iceboat bunks and managed to find all the pieces for the iceboat. It only took about an hour and a half to remember how to put the darned thing together and clean most of the dust off, but shaking it down is certainly more pleasant at forty degrees than at ten degrees. It's not even December and I'm officially ready to go - which probably guarantees that we won't have any decent ice this year.

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20002%20copy.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20011%20copy.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/Sail%20photos/arrow%20006%20copy.jpg





Is that a modified Arrow?

[TimH]

Ice boats are too slow.

[Todd Bradshaw]

As opposed to what? I figure that they generally go faster than I want to crash at, which pretty well gets my attention.
Yes Dan, it's an Arrow. I added the springboard up front for a little more shock absorbancy and built a drop-in carpeted liner for the cockpit. It makes it a pretty comfy two-place touring boat.

[TimH]

Modern designs move as much as five times the wind speed and often achieve speeds of 45 mph (72 km/h) and speeds as high as 100 km/h (60 mph) have been recorded on DN iceboats. Skeeters and older large stern steer iceboats can exceed 170 km/h (100 mph). Rumored, but unconfirmed, top speed of an iceboat is 150 mph. The stern-steerer Debutaunte, currently being rebuilt, was holder of the official land speed record for any vehicle when she was timed over a measured mile at 143 miles per hour on the ice of Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin in 1938.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I doubt that modern DN's have much trouble routinely hitting 60 on good ice. The last time we had the GPS on board we were topping out at about 53 m.p.h. running through 3" of powder snow before it had a chance to stick and screw-up the sailing. DN's are generally pretty race-oriented these days and a good one weighs about one third of what our boat weighs.