page_title: Iceboat
section_title: Evolution of design
hierarchical_section_title: Iceboat / History / Evolution of design
context_page_description: An iceboat is a recreational or competition sailing craft supported on metal runners for traveling over ice. One of the runners is steerable. Originally, such craft were boats with a support structure, riding on the runners and steered with a rear blade, as with a conventional rudder. As iceboats evolved, the structure became a frame with a seat or cockpit for the iceboat sailor, resting on runners. Steering was shifted to the front.
  Because of their low resistance to forward motion over ice, iceboats are capable of speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour. Because of their speed, iceboats are used both for recreation and for racing. Racing craft typically carry one person.
  A related activity, land sailing, employs sailing craft similar to iceboats, but riding on wheels instead of runners.
context_section_description: 17th-century Dutch ice yachts consisted of flat-bottomed sailboats atop a cross-wise plank, resting on outboard metal runners, which carried the bulk of the weight of the craft. At the stern was a steering runner, attached to a rudder-like structure. to which are affixed four steel runners, one each at bow, stern and each end of the planking. These boats used conventional gaff mainsails and jibs, attached to the mast by travellers. A tiller or wheel stern controls the steering runner.
  In the 19th century iceboats evolved into a box, riding on cross-pieces, supported by runners. These "stern-steerer" iceboats were generally rigged as sloops, with a jib sail forward of the mast, although the catboat style with a single sail was also used. In 1879 the archetypical Hudson River iceboat began to emerge. The Robert Scott, designed and built by H. Relyea, had a single backbone and wire guy-ropes. The mast on subsequent boats were stepped further forward than in the past with shortened jibs were shortened and the center of effort and resistance brought into balance, aligning both with the main runners. The shallow cockpit box became elliptical.
  In the early 1900s some smaller iceboats, called scooters, were designed to traverse both ice and water with a shallow, oval 15×5 feet (4.6×1.5 m) hull on fixed runners. These sailing craft were steered by manipulating the sails, there being no rudder.
  The traditional stern-steerer boats were largely replaced by front steering boats in the 1930s, following the development of this style by Walter Beauvois of Williams Bay, Wisconsin in a boat named the Beau Skeeter. This boat led to the "Skeeter" class, and the Skeeter Ice Boat Club formed on Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. The Skeeter class adopted the logo of a mosquito on their sail, and has evolved into an aerodynamically clean machine. The Skeeter class is limited to just 75 square feet (7.0 m²) of sail.
  In 1937, The Detroit News sponsored a new home-buildable ice boat design, which became the International DN. In 1968 Dick Slates of Pewaukee, Wisconsin designed and built the Nite with two wooden prototypes. The design was refined and fiberglass production began in 1970.
caption: Dutch Iceboats, 17th century
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