Ice Flight Pix -

Hello from a very chilly NYC! I don't like it much when it's so cold that taking a deep breath outside burns all the way down to the bottom of your lungs, but there's one thing I DO definitely enjoy about the cold weather, and that's watching to see whether the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club is going to get to have a season.

Having a cold snap that lasts for a few days is usually enough to get me checking out HRIYC.org.

Just thought to check this afternoon - they're not there yet, but there is ice on some stretches of the Hudson and the first ice flight shots are up!  

Ice Yacht Expo at the FDR Home, Library and Museum

I won't be able to make it up to Hyde Park for this but I did want to share it in case anyone who lives closer happens to read this! The lovely folks at the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club are putting on an Ice Yacht Expo at the FDR Presidential Home, Library and Museum, opening Sunday the 21st and running through January 3rd.

On the opening day, there will be a reception at 2:00pm at the Wallace Center Welcome by Lynn Bassanese, Library Director Brief remarks by Historian Wint Aldrich followed by refreshments and an informal introduction to the Hudson River tradition of sailing on ice.

An indoor / outdoor display of classic ice yachts will run Dec 21- Jan 3, including FDR’s ice yacht “Hawk” and examples of other historic and modern ice yachts from the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club.

Where: Wallace Visitor Center and Roosevelt Library Lawn, 
at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Home, Library and Museum. Click here for more details.

Remember "ice"?

And not just the meek, domestic variety you'll find confined to a cooler or clinking in a glass, tamely keeping your refreshing beverages refreshing, but the wild spontaneous kind, running untrammelled and free across the wide-open spaces?


OK, actually I'm not THAT enthusiastic about winter and ice and all that. But I have no air conditioning, just a window fan, and I'm kind of having fun sitting in my steamy apartment looking at stuff from the winter's adventures. That day of iceboating was one of last winter's high points.

One Last Iceboat Post - "Stern Steerers" Documentary

Weeeeeell, I might as well finish out Iceboat Week with one more ice yacht post. Here's a good documentary I found on YouTube, lots more info about these lovely old craft & the folks who restore, sail & love them - nice glimpse of the old boats' modern descendants, too!

Thanks for posting, "Emanpewaukee"!

Part 1:


Part 2:


Really enjoyed Biff & Marcus's presentation tonight - will give a bit more of a review when it's not quite so far past my bedtime, but since I do need to turn in (and am off to PA for the weekend so probably won't be posting 'til Tuesday), I just couldn't resist sharing this one last item. Hope you enjoy!

I think Tugster, Bowsprite & Jeff will recognize a few of our new friends!

Iceboating 4 (last of the series)

I told you I got a little silly last night. Hope you enjoy!

Iceboat Week Continued!

Well, it's definitely turning into Iceboat Week here among the NYC boat bloggers who went up the Hudson on Sunday!

Today, Tugster and Bowsprite both offer their own perspectives on the wreck of the Galatea - Bowsprite was on board, and Tugster watched the boat go down.

Jeff doesn't blog, but he's a very good photographer & I think we're all looking forward to seeing a gallery on his Picasa.

And me? No, I'm not done yet! I have ONE more post planned. I got a little silly last night, will hopefully be able to post the results sometime today & honestly, beyond that I just don't see how I can milk the topic any further. You'll see!

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Iceboating 3 - The Wreck of the Galatea (and much much more)

From Ice Yachts! 2-7-2010

Well, I don't know about eloquence. But I did at least achieve captions for the Ice Yachts! 2-7-2010 gallery & now it's a pretty good photo trip report from our iceboat adventure. Wonder what the heck is going on in the picture above? Head on over, it's all there!

Quick lunchtime update - John Sperr, owner, skipper & restorer of the Galatea, has posted his own report of the day's events over on hriyc.org. Lots of interesting information about just how much care & effort goes into these restorations - for instance, people were talking about how they'd find the old ice yachts stored in a barn somewhere; I had pictured the boat being in pieces, but essentially all one place, but it sounds like just finding all of the main components can take a good bit of detective work. Fascinating reading!

Iceboating 2

From Ice Yachts! 2-7-2010

Well, Tugster has begun to wax eloquent & informative on the topic of yesterday's adventure, with fascinating technical details.

I will not be able to do so until tonight. The Really Big Children's Publishing House does pay people to write eloquently. I'm not one of those people, can't do more than a quick lunchtime post right now - but I just can't resist going ahead & giving the link to the extensive photos I uploaded last night, along with an email I sent (with the link) to the Sebago Sailing Committee in the morning. The photos are as of yet uncaptioned, but they should be pretty self-explanatory (ice yachts! sailing! beautiful day! yay!) -- still, there is a section that might need explanation, plus there was a good story to share, so here was that email, repurposed into a blog post!:

I tried something new yesterday. Iceboating!

Took "a few" pictures - you can see them here: Ice Yachts! 2-7-2010

BTW, the pictures that look like people organizing a wrecked ice yacht for transport back to shore are indeed pictures of just that. These are beautiful craft & most of them very old. The Galatea was having her modern debut after restoration & the runner plank (the crosspiece that holds the runners) turned out to have some undetected dry rot at the heart. My friend "Bowsprite" was riding when it went... Fortunately the boat sagged first & the owner said that the friction probably slowed them enough that when things really went to pieces (literally) they were both fine. Sad sight, but the owner said he can probably repair the plank with a scarf (there was at least one other boat that had had that done) & Galatea will rise again.

After that, I was thinking that this was a wonderful thing to see but there was no effing way I was getting on one. But I got over that -- when the owner of the most amazing boat in an amazing fleet (Vixen, lateen rig with the interesting rigging where the sail is actually suspended from an A-frame arrangement of masts)asked me if I wanted to go for a ride, I just couldn't climb aboard fast enough!

And it was awesome. We were tacking across Tivoli Bay, which was too narrow for this one to get anywhere CLOSE to up to speed, but the acceleration was still impressive & at least gave a hint of her speed*!

The Vixen was built in 1885 & she was a famous racer in her day. I heard a good story yesterday about how she came to be in the Hudson Highlands - she was built in NJ, her owner came up the Hudson to race & proceeded put the best boats of the Hudson Highlands area to shame, and at the end of the day one of the Rockefellers walked up with a fistful of cash & said "You're not taking that boat home"!

*it was a bit like watching a good horse playing in a small corral - you can't see the ultimate speed, but you know it's there. I think that snippet of video gives a good sense of that, you can see how she picks up speed after the tack!

Iceboating!

Tugster thinks I might be thinking of trading my kayak in for an ice yacht...

I don't know...this WAS an awful lot of fun!

More pictures & video to come. Thanks Tugster, Bowprite, Jeff, and the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club for a beautiful day on the river!

Iceboat State of Mind...

So, this weekend's fun is actually unusual. Not just another boring old paddle, but a road trip up the Hudson with a couple of friends to see what we can see.

And we're hoping that that includes watching some iceboating.

And I had to laugh this morning because -- well, you know how I said I couldn't imagine what it's like to be an iceboater & so dependent upon a certain very, very specific set of weather conditions happening for me to be able to get out & play?

I think I have at least got a hint of what it's like now!

I was listening to the weather forecast as I was getting ready for work this morning. We're going on Sunday. There's a big winter storm coming through tonight & tomorrow & it sounds like there's going to be a fair amount of snow.

I found myself thinking "Oh noooo! It's going to ruin the ice!" - and then having hope restored as the announcer continued with the information that the snow will be concentrated in & around the city & areas to the...

drumroll please...

SOUTH AND WEST!!! YAAAAAY!!!

Hey, speaking of sightseeing up the river - want to see a friend of mine having an amazing encounter? Click here!

Note, slightly later: Oh dear...

Who Likes It Cold?

Photo by Dennis Truett, member of the Chelsea Yacht Club, via CYC clubmate Dennis G. Moonstruck.

Who likes it cold?

Iceboaters, that's who!

Talk about a sport requiring patience. I've talked about the patience of surfers from time to time. Sailing takes patience too sometimes - especially on a boat without an auxiliary motor.

But oh my gosh, I simply can't imagine having a hobby that I might only get to indulge in once or twice a year, if that!

I've been watching the Hudson River Ice Yacht's site for the last couple of seasons. I find it interesting watching them watching & waiting for the ice to be just right. Tivoli Bay up in Dutchess County seems to be the main venue for the sport on the Hudson. I'm so glad they are finally getting some sailing in, because last weekend's report must have been SO hard for them to take! Basically, the winter had been a pretty normal one. Cold but not too cold. The ice yachts need a very specific kind of ice to do their thing - smooth, thick, and expansive. They were getting really close at one point and then we had that blizzard. Snow wrecks the ice for iceboating. So then they were back to waiting and waiting and waiting. Week before last the ice was getting back to almost there. Last Saturday, a couple of them did get out - but then there wasn't any wind in the morning & just enough to tack around a bit later. Then on Sunday and Monday it warmed up & POURED. The warm rain water flowing into the Hudson took a whole lot of the ice out Tivoli Bay & the poor iceboaters had to start their vigil all over again!

This cold snap has finally done the trick for them, and it's a glorious sunny day out there, and the winds look to be a steady 10 kts - maybe not terribly exciting but certainly enough to move a sailing craft along nicely - I bet they are having a great day up there!

Me? Off to play catch-up at work (sort of knew when I took Monday to get an extra day with TQ that I'd have to pay for it) after I do this quick post. Dennis G. Moonstruck had sent me that amazing picture (winner of the Poughkeepsie Journal's Quadricentennial Photo Contest) last week, and I'd sort of been wanting to use it on an iceboating post of some sort, and I was just about to head out when on a cold-inspired whim I checked the iceboat site & saw that they were actually SAILING today!! Woohoo!