Ice Boat Sailing

[Don Guillette]

I was thinking about this after reading the post from my friend Rick MacDonald from Calgary, Canada concerning his short sailing season. I've never sailed an ice boat but I would like to. Unfortunately, I'm a warm weather type guy and I missed my ice boat sailing chance when I lived in Syracues, NY many years ago.A few years ago I was at a picnic at a park in Orange county Ca, which was near an in-active army air base. I saw a couple of "sticks"in the air off in the distance and decided to investigate. Turned out they were ice boats with wheels. One of the land sailors took pity on me and asked me if I'd like to give it go with his boat. My first thought was how easy could this be. I failed to notice the wind was blowing pretty good - that is until I sat in the boat and cranked in on the mainsheet and boy did that baby take off. It was as if my rear end was sliding out from beneath me. Instead of easing the sheet I tried to turn it and over it went. Actually, I never did get the hang of it in the 15 minutes I was playing with it. My wife came and dragged me away probably thinking one of these boats would be my net purchase.Rick, have you thought about ice boaing??? Anyone out there tried these land or ice sail boats.

 

[Ross]

Don I have heard that an ice boat

on a broad reach is trimmed as close hauled and can exceed 6 times the true wind. I grew up in New England where ice boats were as common as water boats. We even used small sails with ice skates. but you had to be careful , ifthe wind died on the out bound leg it could be a long skate back to the car.

 

[Lou 14643]

Ross, I had a friend in college who wiped out...

...on skates when he hit a bump (pressure ridge) while using a poncho for a sail on the frozen river in front of our school in the Adirondacks. The ice just looked smooth and he hit, face first, some small ripples in the ice. His face swelled up like a balloon. He could barely open his eyes for the better part of a week. Once the swelling went down there was no long-term damage, except to his ego.

 

[Sherry]

land boated once

I sailed one of the ice boats on wheels once in a big abandoned parking lot. The wind was just right for a first ride - not too much - and it was lots of fun. Of course here in Tennessee, we don't have ice for ice boats without wheels

 

[Roger (Ninette Manitoba)]

Here's the video

Here is a 9 minute video with sound and music. The sport is called sailkarting, and the machine is called a Blokart.

 

[RAD]

Bellport on the Great South Bay

Is where I first saw "Scooters" and wow what a site,they go about 50+ I'll look in my archives for some cool pictures taken from a plane at about 600 ft sceaming down the bay one Sunday.

 

[Rick Macdonald]

I'm a wimp

Hey I brag about how cold it is up here because I'm a wimp when it comes to cold weather. Add a stiff wind to cold temperature and it's even worse. Add the painful wipeouts, my bad back and my 53rd birthday in January. Don, you're not the first to suggest it, but it's not for me. 35 years ago I used to snowshow up in the Rockies when it was -15F; now I won't even drive to work when it gets that cold. I have a 4Mbit line direct to the office so they don't miss me much. On another forum I've been asking about real estate prices and sailing conditions in Florida. I was quite envious when a sailor there complained that he has to pull his boat out for 4 months of the year because ----- it's too hot to sail!...RickM...

 

[Mike]

How about a little ballast?

If they put a chloride solution in the rear tires, similar to what farmers use in their tractor tires in hilly areas, the rig would be more stable. I couldn't see how they trimmed the sail. It looked like he never trimmed and drove around the track irregardless to the wind direction once he had his momentum.

 

[SweetTrade]

Always wanted to...

try but could never find anyone with one or were to buy one!! I used to live in upstate NY and always thought that some lakes would be perfect or some of the bays of lake ontario. I think it would be a blast!!

 

[Rick Macdonald]

Mike - trimming

I don't wind surf but I've read that because they get up to such high speeds they are sailing closed-hauled (nearly?) regardless of the true wind direction. The faster you go, the more the relative wind swings forward from true to dead ahead. Makes sense, except maybe for directly down wind for a long period of time....RickM...

 

[Phil]

Other thrill rides

I always thought of ice sailing in terms of Hobies (or tall rig skiffs). Has anyone done both?

 

[Grateful Dad]

I have iceboarded in the past

and it was a wild. Before I got older and fatter and switched back to sailing I used to windsurf. In the winter I would take one of my smaller windsurfer sails and connect it an iceboard that I made. The iceboard was made from a 1" oak plank about 5' long. I attached skateboard trucks which I widened and put figure skate blades (sharpened like hockey skates)where the wheels would have been. It was an incredibly fast ride and I would get airborne over pressure cracks. The falls on hard water were painful even with full rollerblade pads and a helmet. You need a pretty good sized lake though because you cover a lot of distance quickly and there are no brakes.

 

[Joe]

trimming comment....

...it is my understanding that the terms "close-hauled" "close, beam and broad reaching" and "running" are points of sail. Points of sail are defined by a sailboats position to true wind direction, not apparent wind. So..... just because an ice boat has it's sail trimmed in tight to the center line does not mean it is sailing close hauled. The reason it is trimmed so tightly is because apparent wind moving forward with it's increasing speed. True wind direction may well still be on the beam so the vessel is not sailing close hauled.

 

[Ross]

Joe there are many times

that I have been sailing on water in light air on a beam reach that I had the sails trimmed as for close hauled. With Ice boats the speed is such that no matter the point of sail the apparent wind is very far forward. Nobody sails an iceboat dead down wind, it's too slow.

 

[Rick Macdonald]

Ross' & Joe's comments

Good points - I agree that just because the sails are pulled in close doesn't mean you're on a close-hauled point-of-sail. I was referring to "as if trimmed for sailing close-hauled".Agreed, points of sail are defined by the boat's angle to the wind, not the trim of the sails. However, I've never seen or heard anybody say it's with respect to _true_ wind. I've always assumed relative to _apparent_ wind. I went looking and found the glossary in Chapman's book explicitly states "Beam reach: A point of sailing with the apparent wind blowing at right angles to the boat's fore-and-aft line". It states "close-hauled: Hard on the wind, a point of sailing in which the sheets are hauled tight...", which is the observation that Mike and I were making about windsurfers and ice boats etc due to their great forward speed. They seem to have the boom in the same place no matter which way they point. Amazing at first glance to this 6-knot sailor.I can't see that talking about point-of-sail relative to true wind is very helpful in practice. I have no electronics on board to know that. I did notice when I looked at a polar diagram once that it was laid out relative to true wind. I've always wanted to know how the heck I would use the information while under way without a true wind indicator?I'm tempted to say that splitting hairs over this particular terminology doesn't matter a damn, but in principle I think it does. A big reason for concise terminology on a boat (or plane, radio, etc) is safety and efficiency of communication and of course the resulting action taken by a crew member.So, I'm just curious how much of a mixture of true-vs-apparent wind point-of-sailors we have here?...RickM...

 

[Ross]

Rick, in the absence of a "true wind indicator "

you can look at the waves. most of the time the waves are blown dead down wind. Also when you tack you swing the bow through the eye of the true wind direction.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Rick's reference makes sense

and that's what I thought when I first read Joe's post. Just because your sails may be trimmed, they could well be under or over trimmed for the given apparent wind direction. In any event, the concept is to first find the apparent wind direction, and then trim your sails properly. For instance, we see so many over trimmed sails for, say, a beam reach, and know they survive and don't get blown over only because the wind is light. Sails get trimmed to the apparent wind direction. True wind helps those who know the vectors in choosing the favored tacks.

 

[Ross]

Stu, also if you start on a beam reach you will

trim the sails as your speed increases and the apparent wind moves forward. And yes there is always the chance to over trim. I trim until the sails just stop luffing.