west michigan ice yacht club

Sailors seek thrills in freezing temperatures sailing iceboats across frozen lakes

Looking similar to a sailboat, these winter rides travel over the ice at high speeds. No motor, no keel, no inhibitions.

The art of ice boating is a tradition that has been around since the 1600s when old sailboats would be fitted with blades to help ship goods across the frozen canals of the Netherlands.

Now the sport is a largely recreational undertaking that draws a small, tight-knit group of enthusiasts onto frozen water bodies each year when winds are gusting and bare ice turns lakes into a venue for what seems like an unlikely endeavor — winter sailing.

There are multiple ice yacht clubs across Michigan, including the Detroit Ice Yacht Club, West Michigan Ice Yacht Club and Gull Lake Ice Yacht Club. The Gull Lake Club has an 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 26 event Iceboats on the Bay in Richland, near Battle Creek.

There is Facebook group called Iceboating in Michigan and Ohio  for those interested in the sport, featuring posts ice conditions, upcoming events and places where people use boats.

Ice boating is said to have been introduced to North America in the late 18th century when a crude ice boat was taken onto the Hudson River in New York by Dutch settlers.

Among the more popular iceboats are the DN, the largest iceboat class. It''s name comes from a 1937 Detroit News-sponsored design contest to come up with a design for an affordable, home buildable iceboat to provide winter entertainment during the depression.

An ice boat works similarly to a sailboat minus the comfort and leisurely speeds on a lake during summer months. The boat's sharp runners prevent the thin-wooded crafts from sliding sideways, acting as a keel by reducing drift and keeping the boat going in the intended direction.

To get an iceboat going you simply put one foot on the rear plank and start pushing as if you are a dog-sled musher. With a gust of wind, you are off for a ride whose speed and duration depends largely on what Mother Nature has to offer on any given day.

More: Cops, community take dip into freezing water to raise $100,000 for Special Olympics

More: Chilly Plymouth Ice Festival draws visitors from near and far

Building, restoration, and repair with epoxy

Michigander – A 21st Century Stern Steerer

By randy rogoski, west michigan ice yacht club.

Michigander on Lake Pewaukee, Wisconson for the 2018 Wisconsin SternSteerers Association regatta. Photo by Jay Yaeso.

Michigander is 40-feet long and weighs 1,400 pounds. It’s in a class by itself and is one of the largest ice yachts sailing anywhere in the 21st century.

This “A”-class stern steerer carries 360 square feet of sloop-rigged sail. “That’s a lot of horsepower,” said skipper Eric Sawyer. Michigander also sports a 250-square-foot Kevlar® mainsail for better control in more wind. She’ll sail in excess of 60 mph in a 10 mph wind.

Sawyer built this monster of an iceboat in a second-story garage workshop with the efforts of a friend.

He won every race in a fleet of eight at the 2019 Northwestern Ice Yacht Association regatta January 19 and 20 in Lake City, Minnesota. The waterfront there is an expansion of the Mississippi River known as Lake Pepin.

Michigander’s fuselage being built in Yaeso’s second story workshop in Green Bay.

Building a New Fuselage

While becalmed on a frozen Montana reservoir for five days in 2004 with fellow ice-seekers from the West Michigan Ice Yacht Club , Sawyer hatched the idea of building a new fuselage that would be half the weight of the original. With his friend, and crew member, Jay Yaeso, he drew up plans based on proven designs and began construction in Yaeso’s Green Bay, Wisconsin garage. Michigander sailed her maiden voyage in March 2011.

It took 10 week-long trips to Green Bay, much sawing, clamping and 40 gallons of WEST SYSTEM Epoxy for Sawyer and Yaeso to build the hull from Sitka spruce. When it was finished, they hired a crane to lift the fuselage through a second-story window to a waiting truck.

Sawyer also built a 45-foot enclosed trailer to carry Michigander , her 39-foot mast, 28-foot plank, and runners. The components ride on a caster-mounted dolly that slides out a rear hatch. The weight of the loaded two-axle trailer is 3,500 pounds. It takes three sailors an hour to rig the boat and ready her to sail.

Sawyer’s Roots and Future Projects

Sawyer’s roots are on Lake Michigan’s Green Bay. He has sailed ice yachts all his life and continues a family tradition by sailing this design, which dates from the 19th-century.

When the Soo Locks, which connect lakes Superior and Huron, close for the winter, Sawyer devotes time to boat building and sailing. Sawyer, 54, works as the captain of Great Lakes cargo vessels. When not at sea or iceboating, he lives on White Lake in northern Muskegon County, Michigan.

And he has other projects in the works. “That’s the beauty of an iceboat. They’re never done.”

He grew up sailing a kid-sized stern steerer, and has owned a Renegade and a Skeeter, but always wanted a big stern steerer. In 1990, he brought home a 40-foot stern steerer named Eclipse from Pewaukee, Wisconsin. After the mast and plank were broken in capsizes, he built replacements from lighter materials using composite construction.

For every hour of sailing an iceboat, there are many more hours of building, traveling to the ice, setting up, waiting around for wind, and repairing the boat when it breaks. To spend as much time sailing Michigander as he’s spent working on it, Sawyer says he would have to live 200 years.

“It’s that 80 mile-an-hour ride, that’s why we do it,” he said.

Marine News from the Great Lakes

Michigan iceboating.

Published: Saturday, January 19, 2013 7:00 am By: SailMichigan

For more information please visit www.sailmichigan.org.

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Iceboat Clubs

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