Ice Boat Regatta

The Lake Ronkonkoma Ice Boat and Yacht Club held their annual regatta on Mecox Bay in Watermill NY on the east end of Long Island this year. We'd had a pretty long cold snap and the ice was solid, smooth, and snowless - good conditions for ice boating and, in fact, all manner of ice entertainment. On the day of the races, it was a cold, clear day with winds accelerating during the day to possibly 25-30 mph. That's a bit too strong even for these rugged "hard-water" sailors, so they started early, hoping to get all of their races in before the winds were too strong - and they did. 

By 8:30 in the morning, there were scores of boats on the ice. There were Scooters, Skeeters, J14s, and DNs for as far as the eye could see. (If you're interested in some of the history and a brief description of the types of boats, read the Addendum following the slide show.)

The Skeeters, J14s, and the DNs were racing this day. Among the Skeeters were boats named Glissando, Hypothermia, I-C-FUN, Mill Bug, Stinger, and On the Rocks - you "gotta" love those names. The DNs (that stands for Detroit News - more on that later) generally have numbers but Passion and Arctic Blast could be seen among their ranks. 

Peter and I shot the entire regatta and more between 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Peter stayed on land, mounted his video and still cameras on tripods and got great footage and photos of all the action. I strapped our two Nikons around my neck, one with a 120-400mm telephoto zoom lens, and the other with my beloved 55-200mm, and hiked about a quarter of a mile out onto the ice, several yards from the mark. It was so much fun standing on the ice shooting these speed demons as they rounded the mark, often heeling as they did so. Six races were run and we got it all.

The slide show below is only a small representation of what the day and races were like. As mesmerizing as the races were, there was lots more to see. Scooters, one of which is called Big Mutha, came in and out throughout the day.
Numerous windsurfers were traversing the bay, avoiding the race course as best they could. One hardy, perhaps foolhardy, kite surfer spent an hour being pulling across the ice with a rudderless snow board strapped to his feet.
And, children were learning to ice skate and play hockey near the shore. These were some of the most entertaining and gratifying hours of our winter. Everyone was friendly and everyone was happy, perhaps none more so than me. After 5 hours on the ice, it was wonderful to return home to some hot cider and a warm roaring fire.

 Photos and Slide Show ©2011 Claudia Ward

Music: The Rehearsal by Alexandre Desplat; Soundtract of the movie "The King's Speech"

Addendum: Source predominantly Wikipedia

The Scooter, (a.k.a. ice scooter or bay scooter) is a wide, stubby, scow-like boat used in the 1800s for transportation to and from lighthouses and for ice fishing. Parallel rails were mounted on the bottom, like sled runners enabling these vessels to simultaneously scoot across open "soft" water and stretches of ice. These boats have no rudder and are sailed solely by adjusting the main and jib sail trim.

Traditional stern-steerer boats (none shown here) were largely replaced by front steering boats in the 1930s following the development of this style by Walter Beauvois in a boat he called Beau Skeeter. That boat led to the Skeeter class, which adopted the logo of a mosquito on their sail, like On the Rocks in the slide show. There are sub-classes in the Skeeter class. Class A Skeeters are single seated, have masts in excess of 26 feet, a sail area limited to 75 square feet, and are the fastest skeeters around.

B class skeeters are two seat boats (side-by-side seating), with 23-25 foot masts like Just Add Ice seen in the slide show. C class skeeters have a single seat and are limited to a mast height of 20 feet 3 inches or less.

Some one-design classes have evolved in the C class and the J14 is one of those.

In 1937, The Detroit News sponsored a new home-buildable ice boat design, which became the International DN. The task given to each volunteer was to build a one-person boat with 60 square feet of sail that could be built quickly, was easy to sail, and showed excellent performance. The International DN is the most popular class of ice boat in both North America and Europe.

 

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[Ally de Groat]

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[Charlie Dickerman]

Yet another way that people from the northern climes turn pain into play. This is one COLD sport (I rode only once) and you are going so fast and you are only a very few inches off the ice...it's a rush but certainly not addictive for me. A hearty breed with love of things cold and icy...I fail on all three fronts.