Just found this on the Great South Bay site on Facebook.....I have had the pleasure of watching a scooter on the ice and it is an awesome site
From Local Historian Gene Horton
BLUE POINT, N.Y. WAITING FOR THE SCOOTER RACE
Scooters were small, one or two person, amphibious crafts, that could travel over both ice and water. An ice scooter is actually half sailboat and half iceboat. It had runners on its bottom. The typical scooter had two sails. The large main sail captured the wind and generated speed. The forward sail, called a jib sail, was used for steering the scooter. The scooter could also be steered by shifting body weight. This old postcard view shows a group of ice scooters getting ready to race on the frozen bay at the foot of Blue Point Ave. around a hundred years ago. If you actually want to see a real wooden ice scooter from the old days, go over to the LI Maritime Museum in West Sayville where a “Henry Watkins Scooter” (1915) is on exhibit.
From Local Historian Gene Horton
BLUE POINT, N.Y. WAITING FOR THE SCOOTER RACE
Scooters were small, one or two person, amphibious crafts, that could travel over both ice and water. An ice scooter is actually half sailboat and half iceboat. It had runners on its bottom. The typical scooter had two sails. The large main sail captured the wind and generated speed. The forward sail, called a jib sail, was used for steering the scooter. The scooter could also be steered by shifting body weight. This old postcard view shows a group of ice scooters getting ready to race on the frozen bay at the foot of Blue Point Ave. around a hundred years ago. If you actually want to see a real wooden ice scooter from the old days, go over to the LI Maritime Museum in West Sayville where a “Henry Watkins Scooter” (1915) is on exhibit.
