View attachment GSBa.jpg This boat is on Craigslist - located in Lindenhurst - The owner is calling it Great South Bay Ice Boat. The asking price is $3500.
View attachment GSBb.jpg
Great South Bay Ice Boat
- Thread starter Joe Daly
- Start date
View attachment GSBa.jpg This boat is on Craigslist - located in Lindenhurst - The owner is calling it Great South Bay Ice Boat. The asking price is $3500.
View attachment GSBb.jpg
Chris Hughes
Active member
Beautiful varnish job!!!
william gaynor
Active member
Looks more like a layout boat than an ice boat.
Tom Whitehurst
Active member
South Bay Scooter missing the horn. Not much use for them here since hurricane Sandy.
SJ Fairbank
Well-known member
Not likely to have been used as an ice boat, there's no mast step or rigging connection points. Pretty boat though.
SJ Fairbank
Well-known member
Joe Daly said:
Stealthy! [smile]
Steve Sanford
Well-known member
Good morning Joe, Tom, Mc et al~
Tom is correct - this vessel is a Scooter. True "ice boats" do not float. They are essentially frames with runners made to sail on solid ice. They were popular on the Hudson and large lakes from New England through the Great Lakes. Some big ice yachts on the Hudson (in the Tappan Zee area) were over 60 or 70' LOA, if I recall correctly. The most popular small ice boat was the DN - so named because the design won a contest sponsored by the Detroit News back in the day.
Scooters - first built for Bellort Bay by Capt. (Wilbur A.?) Corwin were designed to both sail over the ice and also navigate (sail, row, pole) patches of open water (air holes) in a mostly frozen bay. The tides and wind tend to keep some water open. The earliest Scooters were used by baymen for all sorts of purposes - clamming, eeling, etc but also gunning. As gunning boats, they were used throughout Great South Bay and also Moriches Bay. The type inevitably developed into a racing vessel - which is the subject of the ad. Hiding in ice or saltmarsh was no longer important, so yacht finishes came into play. I heard of one (from a judge who lived in Babylon, I think) whose cockpit was lined with a cast-off mink coat for comfort the judge's wife and daughter during the chilly racing season.
The racing Scooters were greatly modified from the workboats/gunning boats. They were much beamier and usually had 2 additional runners - "bilge runners" port and starboard along with the 2 runners either side of the "keel" (no external keels on Scooters). The extra runners came into play when the Scooter was heeled when under sail. The rigs, too, got much bigger, with taller masts and longer spars (boom, gaff, sprit). The "horn" Tom refers to served as a bowsprit to get the jib out ahead of the bow. Such horns were usually removable.
View attachment tumblr_m00xgoWl1P1qhk2vso1_500.jpg
Gunning Scooters were/are usually between 40" and 44" beam and had just 2 runners. Their rigs (usually sprit) could be rolled up and stowed either on the deck or even inside the boat. I've told the story of my Scooter here previously. It's on my site at: https://stevenjaysanford.com/great-south-bay-scooter/
Mc~
I think Tom's reference to Superstorm Sandy denotes the opening of "Old Inlet". Bellport Bay was great for sailing on the ice for over a century because Old Inlet was closed and so Bellport Bay was the "dead end" of Great South Bay. It was usually the first part to freeze and the last to open up - so it afforded a long sailing season on frozen waters. Now that Bellport Bay has an active inlet to the Atlantic (opened during Sandy), the ice is much more dynamic and so does not lend itself to sailing via Scooter. (BTW: I hope to be gunning on Bellport Bay next week.)
Lots more info at: https://bellport.com/sbsc/
Finally, the Scooter in the ad is unusual in that there appears to be a trunk for a centerboard (or dagger board) in the forward end of the cockpit. I have never seen such in a Scooter.
All the best,
SJS
Tom is correct - this vessel is a Scooter. True "ice boats" do not float. They are essentially frames with runners made to sail on solid ice. They were popular on the Hudson and large lakes from New England through the Great Lakes. Some big ice yachts on the Hudson (in the Tappan Zee area) were over 60 or 70' LOA, if I recall correctly. The most popular small ice boat was the DN - so named because the design won a contest sponsored by the Detroit News back in the day.
Scooters - first built for Bellort Bay by Capt. (Wilbur A.?) Corwin were designed to both sail over the ice and also navigate (sail, row, pole) patches of open water (air holes) in a mostly frozen bay. The tides and wind tend to keep some water open. The earliest Scooters were used by baymen for all sorts of purposes - clamming, eeling, etc but also gunning. As gunning boats, they were used throughout Great South Bay and also Moriches Bay. The type inevitably developed into a racing vessel - which is the subject of the ad. Hiding in ice or saltmarsh was no longer important, so yacht finishes came into play. I heard of one (from a judge who lived in Babylon, I think) whose cockpit was lined with a cast-off mink coat for comfort the judge's wife and daughter during the chilly racing season.
The racing Scooters were greatly modified from the workboats/gunning boats. They were much beamier and usually had 2 additional runners - "bilge runners" port and starboard along with the 2 runners either side of the "keel" (no external keels on Scooters). The extra runners came into play when the Scooter was heeled when under sail. The rigs, too, got much bigger, with taller masts and longer spars (boom, gaff, sprit). The "horn" Tom refers to served as a bowsprit to get the jib out ahead of the bow. Such horns were usually removable.
View attachment tumblr_m00xgoWl1P1qhk2vso1_500.jpg
Gunning Scooters were/are usually between 40" and 44" beam and had just 2 runners. Their rigs (usually sprit) could be rolled up and stowed either on the deck or even inside the boat. I've told the story of my Scooter here previously. It's on my site at: https://stevenjaysanford.com/great-south-bay-scooter/
Mc~
I think Tom's reference to Superstorm Sandy denotes the opening of "Old Inlet". Bellport Bay was great for sailing on the ice for over a century because Old Inlet was closed and so Bellport Bay was the "dead end" of Great South Bay. It was usually the first part to freeze and the last to open up - so it afforded a long sailing season on frozen waters. Now that Bellport Bay has an active inlet to the Atlantic (opened during Sandy), the ice is much more dynamic and so does not lend itself to sailing via Scooter. (BTW: I hope to be gunning on Bellport Bay next week.)
Lots more info at: https://bellport.com/sbsc/
Finally, the Scooter in the ad is unusual in that there appears to be a trunk for a centerboard (or dagger board) in the forward end of the cockpit. I have never seen such in a Scooter.
All the best,
SJS
Tom Whitehurst
Active member
The bay doesn?t freeze up well. We?re mostly using DNs on smaller waters.
He?s one from to good old days.
View attachment B18DE480-7E49-4A1A-BDB0-3ED347C71B55.jpeg
He?s one from to good old days.
View attachment B18DE480-7E49-4A1A-BDB0-3ED347C71B55.jpeg
Tom Whitehurst
Active member
Steve- very nice write up. Our little scoot has that same trunk upon which our mast step is.fastened. It?s been modified (before my time) to have two sail rigs, a Hobie tall rig and a smaller cane rig. Regards Tom
SJ Fairbank
Well-known member
Tom Whitehurst said:
Ah, so that's where the mast is stepped. The only one I've seen up close had a hole in the deck for the mast, with the step fastened to the keel.