RED BANK – There is nothing like frigid cold weather and whipping winds to warm the hearts of our local ice boaters at the North Shrewsbury Ice Boat & Yacht Club.
When the conditions are perfect, as they were last week with 9 ½” of soft snow-ice on the surface, ice boaters can load their boats onto the ice, hoist the sails and zip faster than the cars on Route 35 on the bridge overhead.
This season is a particularly memorable one for the 160 members, because it’s the year the majestic 55-foot Rocket, almost totally rebuilt after being rediscovered rotting and broken under the club, got to face a worthy peer from the rival Hudson River Ice Yacht Club near Kingston, called the Jack Frost.
“These two boats never raced each other, back in the day,” said the club’s Past Commodore, Jeff Smith, of Atlantic Highlands. “To have two boats that are over 100 years old, to sail against each other, on our home ice. It’s just something.”
Dan Clapp from Fair Haven was one of the Rocket’s three skippers for the three heats against the Jack Frost. He steered the boat on the crunchy and crusty ice with two others, a jib tender and mainsheet tender, who were all outfitted in safety gear like helmets, “bear claws” around their necks to pull themselves onto the ice in case they fall through, and creepers affixed to their shoes in order to grip the ice so they don’t slip. Because ice boats can’t race directly upwind or downwind, anyone watching from the upper floors of Riverview Hospital would have seen them traveling in a sort of diamond shape.
“Most ice boats are small, nimble and quick like a sports car. This boat is like a freight train,” said Clapp, a third generation iceboat owner who collects all kinds. “The boat weighs 4,000 lbs. It takes a while to get it going, and it takes a while to slow it down. You got to plan ahead.”
After the heats ended, the Rocket, unfortunately, took an ignominious flip that required 15 people to right her. Clapp said the spill was his fault, for not letting out the front sail enough and getting walloped by the wind. “I could be the only one to flip over a Class One ice yacht,” he said, laughing. “Nothing broke, nobody got hurt, but now we have a story to tell,” he said.
If conditions are right, the two boats will race again on the weekend. Club members are praying for cold and wintry conditions – and no snow. “If the ice were to freeze, in the condition it is now, it would be absolutely perfect. It would be God’s Zamboni,” he said referring to the ice rink smoothing machine.
– By Christina Johnson
