Now completely restored to its original glory, The Jack Frost is a stern steerer from the 1880s.
What you need to know
Today's iceboats are sleeker, cheaper and more easily transported than last century's behemoths (Roosevelt needed a railway flatbed car to haul the Icicle to the river). Finding one of your own is another matter—most classes of iceboat aren't commercially available. You have to build the boat yourself from standardized plans or commission a new one from a shipwright. Cost? The smallest class of iceboat, a DN-60, will run you around $2,000 new. The largest class of iceboat, a fully rigged class-A Skeeter, can exceed speeds of 120 mph and costs about $60,000.
For more information on iceboats and iceboating, try the International DN Ice Yacht Racing Association or the excellent Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club, both of which feature histories of the sport, links to smaller club sites, supplier lists and bulletin boards advertising parts, plans and used boats. For information on antique iceboats, contact the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club, whose members lovingly restore and sail last century's classic Hudson Valley boats.
John Roosevelt's famous Icicle was 59 feet long with 1,000 square feet of sail. Spectators stood amazed along the banks of the Hudson River to watch it fly across the ice.
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Cold Rush
Exceeding speeds of 140 mph, ice boating is just as thrilling today as it was at the turn of the century
By David Soul
Capable of reaching speeds of up to 140 mph, iceboats were once the fastest crafts known to man. At the turn of the century, onlookers stood amazed on the banks of the frozen Hudson River as John Roosevelt's Icicle raced and outpaced trains running along the Hudson River line. In those days, iceboats were big—the Icicle was 59 feet long and carried 1,000 square feet of sail—and only those who could afford to build them could afford to race them.
The DN-60 is the most popular class of iceboat and can race at speeds up to 60 mph. Cost? About $2,000.
When you think about it, 140 mph is astonishingly fast, even in the age of bullet trains and the Concorde. At the turn of the century, hitting 140 mph must have felt like breaking the sound barrier. Chuck Nevitt, who unofficially broke the 140-mph mark in 1955, describes the sensation: "There's a hell of a racket and a terrific vibration; anyone who thinks ice is smooth never ran it at 145 miles an hour—it's one hell of a feeling."
So how does an iceboat reach such colossal speeds without an engine? Ice doesn't put up resistance the way water does; newly formed, snow-free black ice is virtually frictionless. Taking advantage of a phenomenon known as "apparent wind," ice yachters can accelerate to between four and six times the speed of the prevailing winds. That means a 20-mph wind can easily turn into an 80-mph ride. At these speeds, quick turns become impossible, and even on a lake four miles square, you can run out of ice very, very quickly. Did we mention that iceboats don't have brakes?
For today's iceboaters, that's just part of the thrill. Says Matt McCauley, commodore of the New England Ice Yacht Association, "If you're lying on your back six inches off the ice, holding a sheet and going 60 mph, man, you've got your stomach in your throat." Michael Hoydis of New Jersey's North Shrewsbury Ice Yacht Club agrees: "You know the adrenaline rush you get on a roller coaster? This is the same thing, only it lasts 45 minutes. It is completely addictive."
No kidding. Iceboating associations, like freshwater yacht clubs, hold interclub regattas. Tacking, lapping and right-of-way rules for all American races conform to National Iceboat Authority guidelines, and international competitions occur annually in certain boat classes. The larger ice yacht clubs around the country such as Wisconsin's Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club and North Shrewsbury keep their members abreast of local conditions by means of hotlines and online bulletin boards, and it's not unusual for ice yachters to travel four hours or more in search of lakes that can provide one afternoon of good sailing.
It's not like skiing, though; you can't make artificial ice. Ice yachting aficionados consider themselves lucky if they get in four days on ice per winter. Not only do temperatures need to be low enough to produce ice three inches thick, but winds need to be appropriate to the size of your sail. Fresh snow is a no-no—not only does it produce drag on the blades, but it can harden into a treacherous layer that can crack and bend your runners.
Weather be damned. Hardwater sailors—as they like to call themselves—aren't deterred by such obstacles. For them, the quest for perfect ice is the equivalent of the skier's quest for a foot of fresh powder. As they like to say in the Midwest: "Iceboating is 90 percent building them, 8 percent talking about them and 2 percent sailing them."
Photography credits: The Jack Frost (Courtesy of North Sails New Jersey); the DN-60 (John L. Russell); the Icicle (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Courtesy Hudson River Ice Yacht Club)
Copyright 2004 Ralph Lauren Media, LLC
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