Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-12-14
1CEYACurs READY TO RACE

the frozen surface of n river or lake at the rate of a mile a minute or at almost double that speed the propelling force must at least be n young hurricane.
 This k just the time of year when the ice yachtsmeu of the Hudson and North Shrewsbury rivers, Lakes Champlain, Erie, Minnetonka and others are getting their yachts in trim for the seasons races, and when the western devotees of similar sport on land are beginning to think of speeding their toboggau yachts over the snow GOV cred prairieS. In the east tine ice yachting enthusiasts are in force on the Hudson river near PouChkeepsie, on the North Shrewsbury river at Red Bank. N. J., and on the slassllke surface of Lake Champlain. The Hudson river and North Shrewsbury yachtsmen have sailed worlds champion ship races nearly every year since lS>l, and contests for the Hudson championship have been of annual occurrence since lsia
 What the Amer!Ca's cup is to interna- tional yachting on the sea the New Ham burg challenge peEuaut of America is 10 yachting on the ice. The pennant is only a faded strip of red and white silk inscribed with letters of gold, and while its intrinsic value is iufiGitesinlal it's sentimental value cannot be estimated in dollars to an ice yaCLtsman who has built swift yacht and who is ambitious to see it flying the em- blcIn that represents the championship.
 The penuauu was first offered by the New Hamburg tN. '. Ice Yacht club in 1881, and it's yacht Phantom defended the trophy against the challenging yachts of the PoughkCcpSi2 Ice Yacht club. Since then the trophy has changed hands frequently. and some of the swiftrst ice yachts the world has ever seen, including the Haze, Avalanche, Northern Light Jack Frost and lcicle, have won the trophy. In contests fer the championship the yachts sail over 2O mile course. and the usual average speed, according to the winning time of the differ ent victoGs, i~ about 2l miles an hour. but as the yachts lose considerable time in mak- ing the turn and by repeated tIckiuE from one side of the river to the other this eSti- mate of their speed is hardly fair one. Experienced yachtsmen declare that a speed of a mile minute k not at all unusual, and that it has been demonstrated that yachts have attained the terrific velocity of l2O miles an hour. The Scud, owned by James E. Weaver, one of Red Banks most celebrated ice yachtSmen, has covered half n mile of ice in I5 seconds, or at the rate Of
 two miles a minute
 From these figures II is evident that in the matter of speed no vehicle yet invented
 carries man through the air more swiftly
 than the modern ice yacht. IL is even as { serted by the leading devoIees of this sport , that the yachts u-0VC even faster than the | 1 thought this statement seems absurd, but | it has the support of no less an authority ! than Professor Park Benjamin, who de ! clares that while an ice yacht cannot run
 before the wind faster than the wind itself, i the same yacht with the wind abeam and i the sail cleaving the air in such a manner that il presents no resistance surface may
 attain speed far greater than that of the wind propelling it. This theoretical state ment has been confirmed in practice by
 Hudson river yIChtSmen, who alieEe that 1 their white winged ice skimmers. when ! speeding with q 50 mile wind abeam, have i repeatedly passed railroad trains moving | along the Hudson's banks at the rate of 45 miles an hour
 ] To the uuinformed observer the skeleton | framework of an ice yacht suggests that i the sport cannot be very expensive one,
 and yet suCL crack yachts as the Icicle, ! Lady of the Lake and Avalanche each cost | their owners fully Sl.OOO. The bill for the 1 ironwork alone on the Icicle was Sl5O. This | yacht, before she was rcmodeled. was prob
 ably the largest ever constructed She was
 nearly G0 feet long and had I,U5O square feet