Ice boat

“ Your boat will carry three persons in a light wind,—more if it blows fresh. Rig it neatly, and try to make a finished thing all through. Your ice-boat will then be more than a boy's plaything, and will be admired by old and young. ”

“ And at the end of the long stick, at the back, is another runner, and this moves, and has a handle to it like the rudder on a boat. They steer the ice-boat with this handle.
"And where the two big sticks cross they put up the tall mast and make the sail fast to that. Then when the wind blows it sends the ice-boat over the ice as fast as anything."
"It sure does go fast," said Tommy Todd. "Look! He's almost at the end of the lake now."
"Yes, an ice-boat goes almost as fast as the wind," said Bert. "Maybe some day——"
"Oh, come on!" cried Flossie. "I want to go home! I'm cold standing here." ”

“ You know that when the sails fill, as an ordinary boat, she lies over, and it is her keel or centreboard that keeps her from drifting to leeward. In an ice-yacht the sharp runners keep her up, but there must be some sideways yielding to the force of the wind, and so an ice-boat rears—that is, one runner lifts free of the ice, and thereby takes off the strain. Otherwise you must either luff or be capsized. But with beach-sailing this rearing would probably throw too much weight on the leeward wheel, causing it to sink into the sand, and perhaps stop her way altogether. ”

“ The boys planned to set it in the after part of the cockpit of the ice boat, and take off the sail. The motor would revolve a wheel at the stern, the wheel having spikes all around the rim. These spikes would dig into the ice and thus send the boat ahead. A lever was provided so that the spiked wheel could be pushed down lightly or hard on the ice, thus regulating the speed of the queer looking craft. The Spider could be steered as before, by moving the rear runner. ”

“ At the bow was a long bowsprit, a searchlight at its foot, and upon its deck, in the forward section, a pilot-house.
There were three big steel ice runners on each side, and between them two spiked wheels for propelling the boat over the ice without sails. ”

“ The plan of an ice-boat is practically a triangle, the stern being the apex and each angle terminating in a steel runner. The runner at the apex or stern is movable and does duty as a rudder. But what might be called the deck plan of an ice-boat shows an elongated lozenge enclosing a cross. The cross is formed by the fore-and-aft timber, called the backbone, and the transverse timber called the runner-plank. ”

“ The boat work, whether under sail or oars, was hard labor. There was no open sea, merely leads in the open pack, and over most of these leads, the weather was now cold enough to freeze ice a quarter of an inch thick over night. We found we could not row through this, so the leading boat, usually the first cutter, had to break a way, and all day long men were poised in her bows with boathooks and oars breaking up the ice ahead. ”

“ My first business was to secure the boat; this I did by inserting the mast into a deep, thin crevice in the ice and making the painter fast to it as to a pole. The sun was now very low, and would soon be gone. The cold was extreme, yet I did not suffer from it as in the boat. There is a quality in snow which it would be ridiculous to speak of as warmth ”

“ It was simply impossible to launch a boat. The vast fields of ice, two or three feet in thickness, and from twenty feet to a hundred yards in breadth, were crushing and grinding down the river at the rate of four or five miles an hour, turning and twisting about, sometimes jamming their edges together with so great a force that one would lap over another, and sometimes drifting apart and leaving wide open spaces between for a moment or two. ”

“ Every man arranged his knapsack and blanket-bag over again with the practiced discretion of an expert. Our extra clothing sledge, carefully repacked, was made free on deck. The India-rubber boat, only useful in this solid waste for crossing occasional chasms, was launched out upon the ice for the third time. ”

“ At day break we found ourselves completely surrounded by floating ice, a strong N.W. wind driving the large shoals from the W. side of the little pass in which we lay, with much force towards us, insomuch that our boat was in the greatest danger of being crushed to pieces by them. ”

“ The time of our descent was not a quarter of that consumed in going up. When within a mile of the boat, I saw the balance of my crew awaiting our return, and we reached the boat at 4 p.m. having been five hours absent from it.
"We started at once for the vessel, making slow progress at first on account of the ice. At length we reached open water, raised sail, and sped along. As we approached the harbour we found that the ice had become so thick that it was only by hard pulling, and hard drives of the oars into it, that we got to the ship. ”

“ Large spread of canvas and great speed when running with the wind, or “free”; stability under heavy wind, and adaptability to sailing under conditions similar to those of the common, single-boom-and-sheet ice boat, are the features of the ice yacht shown in the illustration. The runner and frame structure is in general typical of ice-boat construction. The double, or wishbone, mast is distinctive, as is the double-boom and sail arrangement, shown in Figs. ”

“ I went away in a boat early on the morning of the 25th, in order to sound the harbour in those parts where the ice would admit the boat, with a view to take advantage of the first favourable change which might present itself. The wind having come round to the southward in the afternoon, caused the separation of a large portion of ice on the northern side of that which now occupied the harbour, and the detached pieces drifting down towards us, rendered it necessary to be on our guard, lest the ships should be forced from their anchorage. ”

“ Our rudder, also, was so choked by the ice which had formed about it, that it could not be moved till a boat had been hauled under the stern, and the ice beaten and cut away from it. We ran along to the eastward without any obstruction, in a channel about five miles wide, till we were within four or five miles of Cape Hearne, where the bay-ice, in unbroken sheets of about one third of an inch in thickness, began to offer considerable impediment to our progress. ”

“ NOW is the time to get ready for the ice-yachting season, and all those who want to have sport this Winter should begin now and get their boat built so that when the ice gets here they will be prepared to enjoy all of it. ”

“ We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the pools of water that lay between them. The ice was now less broken up, and sometimes tolerably level; but from six to eighteen inches of soft snow lay upon it in every part, making the travelling very fatiguing, and obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three, journeys with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boat as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on the sledges, on account of the "runners" of the boats sinking so much deeper into the snow ”

“ The boat was soon on the river, partly on ice and partly in water, and the struggle to reach the big ice block on which the deer lay, began. We saw the hooks of the young men flying now to the left, now to the right of the boat. Sometimes one end of the boat, sometimes the other, would be raised high into the air. Now and then, as the stream carried them further away, we could distinguish that it had become necessary for the youths to pull or push the boat across some ice barrier. ”

“ Heavy ice, many feet in thickness, and in detached pieces of from fifty to a hundred tons’ weight each, though crowded together in the form of a pack, may be penetrated in a favourable gale with tolerable dispatch, [Pg 89] whilst a sheet of bay-ice, of a few inches only in thickness, with the same advantage of wind, will often arrest the progress of the ship, and render her in a few minutes immovable. If this ice be too strong to be broken by the weight of the boat, recourse must be had to sawing, an operation slow and laborious in the extreme. ”

“ As soon as we had reached the ice, we sprang out of the boat on to it, and, after digging a hole into it with a long, sharp bar of iron, called an ice-chisel, we put therein one end of a large, heavy, crooked hook, called an ice-anchor, and then37 to a ring in the other end of this ice-anchor we made fast the end of the rope that we had brought with us. This done, we signalled to the people on board to ‘haul in,’ which they did on their end of the rope, and in a little while the ship was drawn close up to the ice. ”

“ Accordingly, at an early hour we started, the whole company in the boat (the two kias were left at Cape Ood-loo-ong) ; but we had not gone far before we met the pack drifting in with the tide, and blocking up our way. And now began the usual work of hauling the boat over ice, tracking her through narrow channels, turning now to the right, then to the left, going forward awhile, then back to another opening, and cutting away obstructions. ”

“ Being anxious to gain every foot of distance that we could, and perceiving some grounded ice which appeared favourable for making fast to, just at a point where the clear water terminated, the ships were run to the utmost extent of it, and a boat prepared from each to examine the depth of water at the intended anchoring place. Just as I was about to leave the Hecla for that purpose, the ice was observed to be in rapid motion towards the shore. The Fury was immediately hauled in by some grounded masses, and placed to the best advantage ”

“ As most of my readers know, an ice-yacht is built of two timbers or heavy planks arranged in the form of a big letter T. A steel-shod shoe, not unlike a big wooden skate or sled-runner, is bolted firmly to each end of the cross-plank; while a similar shoe, equipped with an iron post and tiller, supports the stern and acts as a rudder. The Frost King was a powerful boat, carrying a huge main-sail and also a big jib which was rigged on a long bowsprit that projected far forward. ”

“ The current is rapid, and ice had only formed along the edges of the water. The difficulty in crossing arose from [297] the huge masses of floating ice that were carried rapidly down by the current. To avoid being shut in by these small icebergs required all the dexterity of the adepts who manned the ferry-boat. Not only skill, but real hard work was necessary. Poles and boat-hooks were vigorously plied. ”

“ A modern ice-yacht is made of a single-piece backbone the entire length of the boat, and a runner-plank upon which it rests at right angles, the two forming a kite-shaped frame. The best woods for these pieces are basswood, butternut and pine. ”

“ Now and then the boat would get jammed in the [197] ice-pack so that they all must clamber out and lift the stout vessel over the pans. Sometimes men had to stand in the bows and force the pans apart, using their oars after the fashion of crowbars. ”

“ The majority of pictures of ice-boats that I have seen show the machines keeled over and speeding along over the ice on two runners, with a lot of terrified-looking passengers gripping beams and ropes. This is all very well for purposes of illustration, but it is not in exact conformity with fact. Ice-boats do sometimes "rear" as the pictures show us, but it is not because the steersman desires such conduct. ”

“ So dense was the snow-mist that it was impossible to see the jibboom when standing close by the bowsprit. The drift blew suffocatingly along the upper deck of the Flora, and it was covered with an ice-glaze that, owing to the motion of the vessel, made walking a business of the greatest difficulty.
The vessel was driven northwards till she found herself close to an immense ice-floe, and to this they determined to make fast. ”

“ Night brought a bitter gale, whose direction barely enabled us to creep under a tiny triangle of canvas towards the narrow portals of the Bay of Fundy. The flying spray clung to masts and rigging, clothing them with many layers of ice, till each slender spar and rope gleamed huge above our heads through the palpable dark. The scanty limits of the deck became undistinguishable from the levels of an iceberg, to which offspring of the sombre North our little craft was rapidly becoming akin. ”

“ The voices of the ice and the heavy swash of the overturned hummock-tables are at this moment dinning in my ears. ‘All hands’ are on deck fighting our grim enemy.
“Fourteen inches of solid ice thickness, with some half dozen of snow, are, with the slow uniform advance of a mighty propelling power, driving in upon our vessel. As they strike her, the semi-plastic mass is impressed with a mould of her side, and then, urged on by the force behind, slides upward, and rises in great vertical tables. ”

“ We lost all reckoning of our position; for days, for weeks, sea and sky were enveloped in clouds of snow, in the heart of which drove our frozen schooner. We were none of us of a nationality fit to encounter these regions; we carried most of us the curly hair of the sun, the chocolate cheek of the burning zone, and the ice chained the crew, crouching like Lascars, below. We swept past many vast icebergs, which would leap on a sudden out of the white whirl of thickness, often so close aboard that the recoil of the surge striking against the mass would flood our decks. ”