Ice Boats on the Bay

ICE BOATING

Only a few times since we’ve lived here, early in spring, there are ice boats racing on the bay.  Ice boats need ice that has very little to no snow on it.  That happens infrequently in the very early spring when the weather has warmed and cooled so the snow is gone and the ice has thawed and refrozen rather smoothly.

Ice boats don’t seem to have much structure.  The hull is low and sits on a piece of wood going side to side in the rear.  There are three skates.  One on each end of the rear piece of wood and one on the front end of the hull.

Ice boats are classified by their size.  DN class, the smallest, has 60 square feet of sail.  The NITE class has 67 squared feet of sail and side by side seats.  The NITE class raced on our bay March 11 and 12th.  There are three other classes.  Skeeter class has 76 square feet of sail.  These are the fastest boats on ice. Stern Steers have between 300 to over 600 square feet of sail on two masts. The Ice Optimist boats are small and very light weight and able to be handled by youth.  They also require much less ice.  How fast can they go?  Some travel at 55 mph, others go over 100 mph.  These are not slow boats!

If you’d like to see a video of these boats you can go to https://vimeo.com/207103622 and see a beautiful video done via drone.

Hope you enjoy the following still photos of the Ice Boats.