Year: 1877

By invitation Of c0mm01Oro irving Grinnell, of the New Hamburgh Ice yacht club, the writer spent Monday, February 19, in the interesting sport of ice-yachting on the Hudson, at New Hamburgh, sixty-fve miles up the river.

 MT. Grinnell and the writer prepared for

 the cold by donning warm overcoats and gloves, and protecting the feet and lower

 part of the legs from the wind by placing thick knit 'stocking-legs over the junc- tion of pants and shoes and under the indispensable "articles." When ready, they proceeded from the house down to the river through the grounds, noting

 before starting that the thermometer

 was in the vicinity of the freezing point.

 There was slight breeze, which soon freshened up, and the ice was in good condition, the mornings sun having as yet had but little effect on it. A safe course could be had for about two and half miles from just above New Ham, burgh dock, up the river. With some misgivings, the writer lay down on the narrow deck of the Flyaway; and with the commodore at the helm the yacht was soon flying across the river. Flying expresses it 1; the sensation is like nothing else, and it is very pleasing, though at first one feels like holding on very tight, naturally expecting to be shot out on the glossy surface every time the direction of the craft is reversed. This turning around, with the speed abating but a little, is 8 queer sensation. The yacht is steered so as to pin around inside of her own length, or little over, the skates scraping sideways along the ice, and the adhesion being such that she doss not, as would naturally beexpected, slide sideways for some distance over the ice before getting on her course again, but makes perfectly circular track around. There were some eight or ten yachts sailing to and fro, tacking here and there on the ice and occasionally two or three coming up the river to- gether, for friendly trial, made fine pictures with the ice-bound river stretch ing down, the Tanzkammer bluff to the left, with the grand old storm king in the distance.

 The craft Flyaway has an extreme length of twenty-five etfrom the end of her boom to the tip of her bewsprit; she is built very narrow, in more of boat fotm than most ice yachts, the side timbers running past the mast and curving in to the bowsprit as in form of a sail-boat she is sloop rigged, and car ries three hundred and forty-two square feeto of canvas. When, from the number of times the yacht had been up and down the river, zigzagging here and there, the writer judged that he had been fully an hour on the ice, his watch re- corded but fifteen minutes. It is fast living; more impressions are received, and more events take place in given space of time, than under any other con ditions. One minute the boat was at New Hamburgh, and in another, before the observation was noted, she was mile up the river. Time is constant, but distance loses its ordinary relations to it.

 Strange to say, from the slight jarring produced by the runners on the ice-way, those who are new to the sport feel sensation much like that felt on the ap proach of seasickness and it has even happened that persons have been veri- tably seasick. The rearing, which fre- quently occurs, does its share in causing this feeling, as does the quick spinning around before described. This rearing usually happens with strong wind, and generally when a yacht is on curve just after going about, and results in the windward runner rising some two or three or even four feet above the surface of the ice, the rest of the frame, and con- the deck, rising in proportion, so that the uninitiated voyager naturally | expectsa capsize, the yacht running for | n few seconds entirely on the leeward and rudder skates. The yoyagers sailed with the wind abeam or from the west, the river's course at New Hamburgh about point east of north and the boat usually made track and a halfin mile of straight course, keeping, IS is always the case in ice-yacht sailing, Lhe sales flat aft, and steering 50 that the Dennant at the masthead flew in line with the gaff. When put directly before he wind to slow up, the pennant still lew aft, the canvass shivering as if in the |