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Show SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 25, TKZ OGDEN 192. ICE YACHTIN ' - variant of ice yachting, skate sailing, is shown- at the right. Below is an ice yacht regatta scene and striking- pictures showing phases of the thrilling pastime. " . it ' ' tit ' ' - ' VS. , a ...... EST WINTER EST,SP ' "A Ideal Conditions Rare, but Enthusiasts Along ' the Shrewsbury and Hudson Rivers, and in Certain Inland Lakes Yearly Get -- Thrills With Frail Craft That Outrun the. Very Gale That Drives Them Rudderless Scooters on Long Island Bays Another Type of Fast Sailing Craft, Amphibious as Well . STANDARD-EXAMINE- R ' ' - II n y II K r J .n U.- By TORREY FORD. iceboating Is one of th on the winter program ALTHOUGH considered a novelty in the average community, Nine persons out of ten who wouldn't lift an eye to the heavens at the whirr of a passing airplane" would walk a mile to see an iceboat In action. And .yet the records clearly show that the iceboat was doing 100 mile3 an hour half a century before the first plane was brought out on the field for the first timid test.' There probabry never has been any official census taken on the subject; but if there were the figures wouldn't show much above one tceboat to every 100,000 population. While Red Bank. N. J., and Patchogue, L. I., might come In strong with an Iceboat to every ' three families, this tally would ba offset by the total lack of 'registration of any craft from Louisville, Ky., or Houston, vrvy s" 3 i Jib-riains- - 7 ii-- i c. V-- 4.1 I A hi v 4- - J ' No Tiller ': - ' sheet were slacked off the speed of the could not exceed the speed of the wind, which as iceboating rates It Is hardly moving. The best point of sailing is about five points from the wind. That is where she freta up on a single blade and files over the ice. An ice yacht can sail at a moderate speed within 2 3 points of the wind. There seems to be less chance of capsizing In an Iceboat than In a regular sailboat. When the windward runner Is far up In the air and to all appearances the boat "Is about to go over, the end of the main boom Is resting securely on the Ice and preventing such a casualty. Now and then they do go over until the masthead strikes the ice. but they are easily righted and off on another spurt as though nothing had happened. The average boat Is built to hold a crew of not more than two, though the majority of racing crafts manage to get along just with a skjpper. In the matter of weight and balance, the one man crew Is far to be preferred; but In the excitement of Intricate maneuvers In a stiff breeze, the", helmsman can generally find use for an extra pair of ice-yac- rJT r. ... - & A 6 If r- if WWk,. 55 Wft H - y y jf W. Butler Duncan, famous yachtsman, on his scooter in Manhasset Bay. Above is shown crew righting the - - " - r7 ; .v vjk7 1 ' I I . iis'A f - - yacht after a spill. . The explanation is comparatively simple. ceboatlng is a fussy sport, especially about climate. '. It demands severe cold weather without snow, long stretches of ice without flaw3 and traffic regulations that have eliminated all mention of a speed limit. It Is only an occasional spot on the map that can -- brate the seventy-fifth- " of Ice-r" anniversary boating in New Jersey. But this early navigating of the Jersey ice bore about as much; resemblance to modern iceboating, according to the Hudson veterans, as a soap box on " hands. wheels does to a 1921 automobile.- - Whatever the facts really are, the Shrewshas gone far ahead in popularity In bury recent years while the Hudson has fallen off. step up and meet these rigid qualifications. And when the Ideal iceboating territory Is Keeping the Hudson open for steamer navi- and cutting ice for commercial pur-- , Satn has found there Is ' still the difficulty poses , played Its part in discouraging the activities of the' original Poughkeepsie thrills for 'the privilege of being yanked ice Yacht Club. ' over the ice at a breakneck speed on a con' Iceboat Jack Frost veyance that has little more stability than ' Still Holds the Record the average safety razor, blade In the history of iceboat racing during the Our own knowledge of the sport is entirely last thirty-fiv- e years the name of one boat from hearsay. , The only thrills we have stands out boldly. The Jack Frost began ever had from boating on the ice are secor.d her racing career in 1883 by capturing the g hand thrills. We have seen them com. challenge pennant in a racebetween or eighty miles keepsie and North Shrewsbury. y down seventy-fiv- e she an hour, skid ninety feet taking a corner still holds the lead and stands by a record and sheer off on another tack. We havelfniade February 9, 1893. seen a boat tear of ahead of the wind, fal.sj! The time record was established by the course into a pinwheel and shoot back to meet the ' Jack Frost sailing over a twenty-mil- e la 43 minutes 30 seconds, or at the rate rteze again. Barring pneumatic tubes, the iceboat Is of a mile in 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The calculated distance that the yacht sailed probably the bnly air propelled contrivance I" covering the course was 31.38 miles mak- known to man that can travel faster than an average of a mile in 1 minute and 34 Jno Yet iceboat will tell wind. the fan the you . 'seconds. is A not few a that it dangerous sport. thls record should stand over , so legs get broken and a collarbone here and a long,. period of years when Iceboats are there, vbut, generally ' speaking, It's a pretty to maKe much greater speea is not suppose Oh He Insists safe pastime. my. ves! understood by a person unacquainted easily it upon a participant sticks to his ship and with the details of racing. The chief exIf offered by the Ice skippers themselves f avoids any serious collisions he may check cuse' is the average course over which a that club the he at at night; but if loses race in yacht is narrow that a yacht is not held bis hold on a turn or gets dizzy with the able to hold isa so caurse for more than a few speed and parts company with the main minutes. does under way Hardly ltget sheet he may ride a mile on the ice with before the and It reached shore is opposite nothing but centrifugal force as motive has to sheer off on another tack. power and nothing to sit on but the original ' Another thai holds up the speed ' pattern as designed In the Garden of Eden. of the. racefactor, is down to round the slowing Any breaks in the ice or shore lines en- 'leeward buoys. "Where this has to b,q done countered during this record slide tire treated several times during the race it lengthens as legitimate hazards of the course. course the and increases the elapsed time. But for. all the broken bones and imThe of the Kalamazoo Ice Wolverine, promptu duckings in Ice water, the regular' Yacht Club, has to her credit a record In a sailors of the Iceboat fleet admit that the race to and return of twenty miles thrills make up for everything. They like in fortywindward minutes flat, or at the rate of a that carerree reeling of ripping oft a mile mile In. two minutes; but in this race tho It's exhilarating and a great actual distance sailed was nothing flat. ""intonic not known. ior depressed spirits. 'The ever slowest i time for a Three of the best known centers for Ice victor In a race was when toerecorded won the Icicle yachting are the .Shrewsbury River in New Hudson River vs. Carthage race in 1899 In Jersey, the Hudson Rlvgr and Manhasset the elapsed time for the twenty mile course Bay. Other iceboating centers dotted about of 1 9 minutfs and 37 seconds. As the country include Orange Lake and Lake the Icicio actually sailed 31,38 miles, this Chautauqua In New York. Lake Champlaln, 'was at the rate of a mile in two minutes Gull Lake at Kalamazoo, Michigan; the Wis- and thirteen seconds. The Icicle held the consin and Minnesota 'lakes and along the .challenge pennant from 1888 to 1892 and southern shores of the Great Lakes. won it again in 1899." There is considerable discussion as to who The average speed made over the Hudson did the first iceboating in America. Tho River course In all these races figures out Hudson claims the first Ice yacht club, the to about in one minute and fifty Poughkeepsie Ice Yacht Club, with a char- iiVC vaxjous skip- ter dating back to 1S6I- it was more pera. have reported speeds made over a than ten years ago that the Shrewsbury T6316 S Ce Up to 100 mUea 6X1 bour River yachtsmen held a carnival to cfcle Archibald Rogers a veteran ice yachtsman. Now Comes the Scooter To Dispute Supremacy While the modern iceboat will probably never have any rival on the ice in the matter of speed, the scooter has come in during the last ten years or so and Is being used Loth for pleasure and duty on Great South The scooter Jay and Manhasset Bay. travels over Ice or water, snow or any other element that it happens t encounter and gives everybody a good time, Actually the scooter Is little more than South Bay duck boat A pumpkin shaped, runners. It was origon a of pair sitting life guards and the used baymen by inally who needed some .means of communication between the mainland and the outlying beaches during the winter months when part of the bay was frozen and part open water. y the scooter Is used n various parts of the country, especially where the - " : V . . - Pough-swoopln- To-da- To-da- This snapshot shows an ice yacht careening along at better than - sixty miles an hour miles an la credited with doing eighty-fou- r hour In Jack Frost for' six miles in a race ' . - " x one-mil- with Haze. Practically all iceboats are built with a converted sloop rig, jib and mainsail." There are three main parts In the construction: the hull or backbone, commonly called the center-timbe- r, the runner plank on which two runners attached to' the hulls rests-aneach end of the runner plank, and the rudder. The rudder is the only movable part of the boat, with a horizontal and vertical movement . The sails of an ice yacht and those of a sailing craft are essentially the same ex-- " cept in the cut and the weight of the canvas. The ice sails are made of a lighter canvas and they are cut as flat as possible. No draft "Is given either to the jib or mainsail. Various other rigs have been tried without any great success. The lateen rig is used almost exclusively out West and modl-- f cations of,, the 'lateen have been used In Eastern centers. On smaller boats where the sail area does not exceed 250 square feet, the cat rig has given fair success. The mast has to be stepped so far forward in the cat rig to preserve the proper balance that It ' has not been ; generally adopted. But.' the sloop rig has .been' undergoing a gradual change, with the mainsail getting larger and the, jib being made smaller. At present, the jib on the Iceboat Is so small that it Is used primarily for balance and only Incidentally fox, driving power, ; The limit of size was reached In the building of the Icicle and the Jack Frost. The Icicle measured 68 feet 11 inches over all and had a sail area of 1,070 square feet Al- though she was ope of the fastest boats on the Ice for a time, ultimately she was beaten hy a boat that - carried iess than half,' the Fame saji area. .'. . d - - hr-a- ht 2-- 5 - . . . . Copyrlarht, 1921. by Tb Scooter,' The Jib Does ' the Work The, Jib does most of the steering. Hold ' the scooter comes around as If she were on a turntable. To come up In the wind, the helmsman merely has to step Tightly toward the bow and the- lightened stern will swerve around. By an adjustment of weight and a ' careful handling of the sails a scooter turns In Its own length. But when it comes to sailing before th wind the scooter balks absolutely. As soon, as the mainsail blankets the wind from the" Jib, the steering power of the boat Is gone. It Is necessary to Ptack before a wind Just ' : as you would tack Into .It.; The real thrill of scooterlng comes In taking off from ice into Ice water. The scooter Is driven straight at the water. Just before reaching the water, the crew stands up to relieve the boat of all dead weight, If she takes It on a slant, there is good chance of a wet spill; but if the man who controls the jib is strictly on the Job and she takes It straight she floats off easily without ship-rin- g any water. Heading for solid Ice rfgaln Is more sport. The proper maneuver Is' to take that head on too, with as much momentum as possible. If the windIa blowing sufficiently, the scooter will mount the Ice and be off on her. runners without any fuss. In a light breeze, however. It Is sometimes necessary to pull the boat up with the" pike pole provided for . that purpose. The scooter can make between thirty and forty miles an hour. During the Ice season the Knickerbocker and Manhasset Bay Yacht Clubs stage races every Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile,! the Shrewsbury River enthusiasts' are maintaining their loyalty to the old ffashioned Iceboat. Regatta committees of the" various Ice yacht clubs have so far failed to announce the exact dates of their, big, races for this year. In fact, they make a particular point each year of being as indefinite as possible. An Ice yacht race Is too risky an enterprise t be scheduled many hours ahead of starting time. Even If the committees could forecast correctly a week of Ice, a young blizzard might come along any day and bury the course under a foot or so of frozen - . snow. An ice yachtsman has to have lots of ' patience. And then some. fast to the mainsail and let go the jib, and ''4' i.. 'vt ' pri - :w',v.'jw.,'wy.'.)(.-(.i,- True Iceboating Is Like Riding on a Razor Blade r - . t- I all - has Iceboating .on the Gulf It has Nor always been notoriously poor. ever become much of , a rage among tha regulars at Palm Beach. Jump half a continent and you find the same neutral attitude still prevailing. You might scour the Province of Quebec and gather only a handful of You might page the entire enthusiasts. Sound without locating a single icePuget boat skipper. . climatic conditions make Ice strong enough to hold a boat a doubtful quantity. A Mnall sized scooter can carry a load of four to five passengers, though where, there Is much open water the safer system is to restrict the attendance to the captain and a rnate. The typical scooter is about fifteen feet long, with a wide beam. It has an open cockpit about five feet long, the rest of the surface decked over, with a heavy combing built to take hard knocks. It has a' rig. with a sail area from 75 to 125 square feet. The racing scooters have two jibs and a double set of bowsprits,- to use according to the weather. The amazing feature of this curious- craft is the total lack of any steering apparatus. A novice might hunt in vam for a tiller and finally decide that the .boat had left the shop minus a few of the, essentials. The skipper of a scooter has to rely on his sails and ballast, a delicate matter o balance, for all of his steering. Yet most of those who have sailed a scooter Insist that.onea you hare done away with a tiller, you never V . want to use one again. v' ' Tex. cr , - - "-- : . ; . - Odd Facts About the Metropolis were Since that time the trend has been, toward' smaller boats, both for racing and for pleasure craft. Different parts of the country have gone in for special classes. At Kalamazoo, the 450 square foot class has had a considerable vogue, while at Orange Lake the majority sail In the 250 square foot ' L later IdentlfleU. found, but nearly all New York, Saturday. In the same The persons missing reported jr lI tHE amount of water used daily by the year vsere 6,670. nearly all of whom were people of the greater city would traced by the police. Inquiries for many make a lake which would be exactly others were made, but the number, stated mile one ' long, half a mile wide and seven are regarded as the actual missing. ; class. There Is a distinctive type of Iceboat fret deep. On other words. It Is 740.000,000 The diamonds and pearls entering this port gallons. called the Madison type, which was conwould be worth literally about and of annually The number up persons walking ceived on the lakes around Madison. Wis., to every prrson In the United cent In street "thirty Fifth avenue at and another type that was developed In down of the cut and uncut gems value The States. 12.000 the to daytime average about northern Michigan. The Hudson River type the was $3,440,710. In October last the official for entering 129,930 are, The hour. figures Id generally used around New York. real to Imitation rems the addition thingten hours between 8:30 A. M. and 6:30 P.M. of entered $42,723 value numto the same time an during the at the The vehicles passing It Is Not Easy Thing same month. and 14.182. The ber pedestrians passing up To Sail This Queer Craft down d street Broadway at The deepest part of New York Bay Is at One cannot learn to sail an iceboat by same ten hours average 111,206, and southern end of "the Narrows. The avethe out some and On afternoon 16.280. fair Fifth taking the vehicles number dropping a few tricks at the tiller. Even an experi- nue, at Thirty-fourt- h street, the pedestrians depth there Is 109 feet. In. some places out some distance from shore It becomes as enced water sailor has got to begin all over number 71,500 and the vehicles 16,930. shallow as fifteen feet. The greateet depth to be the brought up gradually again and an the Hudson opposite the Battery is fifty- of to can be he where take Is. trusted of Manhattan The total length pOint Bridge n two to some feet It is from fifty-tw- o iceboat out from its moorings with two milea less 1,230 feet Williamsburg' Central Park. feet of Opposite boat himself old deep opposite and the Brooklyn bringing prospect Bridge is 7,200 feet and the Fifty-nint- h street ip. the liver the depth to safely back to port Bridge is 6,537 feet 123 bedrock is to her windward is feet, but about seventy-fiv- e easy enough. Sailing sUt lie on this. bedrock unmud and to can feet of experts. Any one who The wharves and docks of New York,, not according water. der the and between New and on starboard the port distinguish Jersey side, including those knows a flaw when he sees one can sail an number 713. ; In round figures and allowing for the iceboat oft to windward without much difto comes In The Place all the streets of the greater city 'changes wrought by tides the width of the sailing ficulty. tricky part leeward, starting, stopping, jumping cracks, end to end and it is safe to say you would Hudson opposite the Battery is z,&uw yaroa; street It Is 1,200 yards, and at maneuvering narrow passages and threading have a street that would reach across the at Fifty-nint- h onstreet a 1,400 yards. Fortieth the traffic of other Iceboats, skaters and continent The streets of Manhattan, some lookers. more "confined than borough which is 'The city government owns, or leases 2,900 The secret of sailing to. leeward, once of the others,' have an aggregate length of buildings,-whosannual lighting bill amounts gained, makes it not such a complicated art 186.5 miles. electric bulbs for these The to off $918,916. the sheet and letting Instead of paying cost about $100,000 annually, alone as the in bodies in water .run found the before of wind dead number buildings her The sailing, the helmsman must trim his. sails close, city in 1920 was 554, of which 470 were ' according to the officials of the Lighting :" All of these were unknown when partment. "fiat aboard" aa the expression goes. If the . , , , -- - - - -- - , Forty-secon- d fc - , dur-ing't-he Forty-secon- . ' - fifty-seve- " 1 . . e Ie-mal- es. ; Nw Torle Herald. |