[Leica] More about iceboating

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

This is a short introduction to iceboating for Luggers living in the south,
in tropic countries, in Asia, or in Spain. Nathan already knows all about
it.

American iceboating likely began in my local stretch of the Hudson River, an
area largely settled by the New Amsterdam Dutch.

In the cold 1800s the river would start to freeze at Thanksgiving and not
thaw until Easter, creating a 100 mile

avenue of ice from Peekskill to Albany. John Roosevelt, FDR?s uncle, founded
the Hudson

River Ice Yacht Club in 1869. Iceboats were up to 70 feet long, some
weighing as much as

3000 pounds. Commodore Roosevelt?s personal boat, the Icicle, was 69 feet
long and

carried 1,070 square feet of sail. It was alleged to have a top speed of
over 100 mph in the

proper winds and would race, and often beat, the Hudson River trains to the
next town. To

the regret of many iceboating diehards, the Hudson does not freeze like it
did in the 19th

century and good iceboating days are few and far apart.

These videos depict the modern small iceboat experience. The iceboat is a
DN, named because it was the winner of a contest sponsored by the Detroit
News some 80 years ago. In the early 70s my son and I built our own version
of the DN using salvaged racing ice skates and the mast and sails from a
racing wet water dinghy.

We sailed it on a couple of local lakes and in the Hudson's Tappan Zee and
Haverstraw Bay area whenever we had "black ice." Thanks to global warming,
this happened less and less frequently over the years and finally we only
got one or two good days in an entire winter. We gave it up when he went off
to college.

Well constructed DN iceboats can speed at over 90 mph. We probably could
only get up to 70 mph in our less than perfect boat. Sitting 6 inches above
the ice, that was almost light speed for me.

So now, on the very hottest days of summer, I fix myself a gin and tonic and
gaze longingly at the ice cubes.


Iceboat video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSwiIUnR7M


Iceboat rap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1hea5S1p9M

Larry Z