The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-03-13
A Description of the Ice-BOats of the
Hudson.

WITH the nominal-and perhaps be-
fore long actual-advent of spring the
Hudson River steamboats, are being re-
fitted and prepared for business, while
the ice-boats are preparing to with
draw. Many are the accounts given in
the daily papers of the ice-boat races
every winter, and yet many people
have no idea what an ice-boat looks
like or what rate of speed it can attain,
or how it is sailed. "Well, it doesn't
make much difference" said an priori
thinker on the subject of ice-boats the
other day, eff you do break through
the ice. OF course you can stay quietly
in the boat till some one helps you out. !"
Imagine sitting quietly on triangular
platform which, while going at the rate
of sixty miles an hour, has been sud-
denly brought to q standstill!
Poughkeepsie on the Hudson is the
HEADQUARTERS of ice-boating, and of q
winters day can be seen hundreds of
the queer-looking craft either skim
ming over the CLASSY surface of the
river or lying with sails carefully furled
within q stones throw OF the docks.
The interest people take in the boats is
evident on the trains on the New York
Central and Hudson River Railroad.
If boat is sailing about in sight, an
utter stranger will call his neighbor's
attention to it, and in a moment every
one has left the opposite side OF the car
and is gazing in wonder through the
windows on the river side. Elderly
gentlemen put down their papers and
say: "Humph! dangerous amusement.
very;" ladies lean forward with ex-
CARNATIONS of admiration at the ease
with which the boats are apparently
managed and at the graceful turns and
circles they make. Then some one
SAYS aloud: 81 wonder what time
they can make under most favorable
circumstancesp'' This is quite enough,
if there is an ice-boatman on board, to
loosen his tongue, and he will give
every particular concerning the boats,
from the time they are built to the time
they are wrecked. He generally be-
gins in this way:
my dear sir, they are as unlike any
other kind of o boat as possible. The
only thing in common is the sails; and
for sailing in one, I'd rather do that for
half an hour than-than-than do any
thing else for six months"
For all ice-boatmen are enthusiasts.
And an ice-boat is unlike any other
boat. 1t is simply triangle OF hickory
or spruce plank, say thirteen feet long
and two and half inches thick. The
base is the bow, and under each angle
is q runner or skate of wood, shod with
steel and coming down to a sharp edge
like knife. The skate is fastened be-
tween two small chocks of wood, in or
der that it may play little up and
down and glide over rough ice with
greater ease. This is called the runner
plank. Another, somewhat shorter, is
above the runner-plank, and through
this runs the mast, which is stepped in
light though strong beam known as the
astringer" extends aft and corresponds
to the keel in q sail-boat. Two other
beams of about the same size as the
=" stringer' and bent at one end SO that
when joined they form the prettily
rounded stern also run aft from the
runner-plank, the end resting on the
plank and supporting the upper or
or taffrail of the boat. At the ex-
treme stern or apex of the triangle is
the rudder, which is a skate like the
two others but smaller, being only
about eighteen inches or two feet long.
This skate is attached to the rudder-
post. About half the space inclosed by
the side beams or rails is decked over
at the stern, affording room for the
helmsman and two others to lie down
for that is the only position practica-
BILE aft of the mast, or in what is called
the cabin). Rubber washers" the
size of a mans fist, are very often
placed under the ends of the side beams,
where they rest on the runner-plank.
and also on the rudder-post under the
cabin, the object being to make the boat
ride smoothly over rough ice.
The boat being built, the enthusias-
tic boatman goes on to explain to (by
this time) q little knot of listeners in
the palace car how it is sailed. In this
respect ice-boats do not differ materi-
ally from other craft except in one re-
spect-they are never sailed "free,"
that is, before the wind, for this rea-
son: They will go much faster &c on
the wind" because, going free,"
they will only run as fast as the wind
blows; 80 that if the wind is blowing at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour that is
the speed they will attain, but with the
same wind on the quarter" they will
do forty or fifty miles in the same time
with ease. This is q most simple thing
to understand. yet few but practical
sailors comprehend it. Sailing on the
wind the same pressure is on the sail
oil tho fivrao ond tho boof Hoono thov.-