Just be sure to dress warm!
I’ve been waiting all week for the Navesink River to freeze up enough, in hopes that the iceboaters would come out of the woodwork, and today they did! Aren’t they beautiful?
Unlike regular sailing, in iceboating there is minimal friction, so you can sail upward of five times the speed of the wind. Therein lies the thrill. Sitting low, so close to the ice, they say it feels like you’re going 100 miles an hour. Sometimes the wind is so strong that only one side of the boat makes contact with the ice. Can you imagine the thrill?
The Navesink only freezes every three or four years, so the people who practice the sport have to travel to wherever the ice is, and we spectators have to wait for the chance to watch them. I’m hoping tomorrow will bring the bigger boats and the races; a regatta of sorts.
way too cool, how exciting.
Hot rod boats.
What a thrill, the sound sound of the wind, snap of the sail, and the crunch-grating sound of the boat rails on the ice. Man, what a rush.
No, I’ve never done that. I would have liked to.
Now there is something we can’t do here in Florida!
That look like so much fun! (And I’m rarely tempted by sporty things.)
Do they ever tip? I’m such a coward. They are beautiful and it’d be thrill enough for me to watch safely from terra firma.
It does look like fun–fast fun, but fun.
How do the racers keep their faces warm?
Not one who likes doing things on the Ice but that looks like all kinds of fun! WOW – a new sport that I have never tried!
Oh awesome! I love to sail! I never heard of ice sailing. I can imagine how thrilling it is to achieve 100 mph and yet scary at the same time – trying not to run into anyone or anything – phew!
That looks like a freakin’ BLAST!!!!
What a thrill but it isn’t something I would try since I’m accident prone.
Glad you got to see it! I’ve never heard of this sport.
Your pictures are beautiful and make we want to try the sport. It looks safer for me than ice skating. (I see you have been doing some labeling! You should go to the template and put a label box in your side bar.)
How cool! I can just feel the wind on my face thinking about it…
That looks like a blast! I am a white-water rafter and the thrill of that is exquisite. I imagine iceboating would be as much fun or more.
I wish our ice was that smooth to do that. We have to hot mop to ice skate. That does look like a blast.
Don’t they make a nice photo? Looks fun to watch, but wouldn’t want to try it!
that is so cool. were they moving fast. how cold was it? so pretty.