Iceboat
Originally, such craft were boats with a support structure, riding on the runners and steered with a rear blade, as with a conventional rudder.
Because of their low resistance to forward motion over ice, iceboats are capable of speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour (100 km/h).
Boats were as long as 69 feet (21 m) and sailed as fast as 107 miles per hour (172 km/h), a record exceeding any other conveyance in 1885, set by the Icicle.
[1] 17th-century Dutch ice yachts consisted of flat-bottomed sailboats atop a cross-wise plank, resting on outboard metal runners, which carried the bulk of the weight of the craft.
The Robert Scott, designed and built by H. Relyea, had a single backbone and wire guy-ropes.
[4] A few "Class A'' stern steerers with at least 250 square feet (23 m2) of sail area survived in to the late 20th century.
In the early 1900s some smaller iceboats, called scooters, were designed to traverse both ice and water with a shallow, oval 15×5 feet (4.6×1.5 m) hull on fixed runners.
The Skeeter class adopted the logo of a mosquito on their sail, and has evolved into an aerodynamically clean machine.
[7] In 1937, The Detroit News sponsored a new home-buildable ice boat design, which became the International DN.
In 1968 Dick Slates of Pewaukee, Wisconsin designed and built the Nite with two wooden prototypes.
Because of the high boat speeds, iceboat race courses are established around fixed marks which are to be rounded in a one-way route, enhancing boat-to-boat traffic safety.
[1] Among the classes of iceboat are sailing craft that have associations in Europe and North America: IceOptimist, International DN, and Monotype XV.
[15] The DN 60 derives its name from the 1937 request of The Detroit News for a high-performance, inexpensive, home-built iceboat design.
Modern DNs share many one-design features with the original boat, including the basic aerodynamic fuselage design, runner configurations and 60 square feet (5.6 m2) of high-performance sail.
[16] The Monotype XV is a class of stern-steering iceboat based on a 1932 design by an Estonian, Erik von Holst.
[18] The Renegade is a class of home-built iceboat whose prototype appeared in 1947 in Wisconsin, designed by Elmer Millenbach to be carried atop an automobile.
