
Illustration of ice boat racing.
Winter along the Jersey Shore can be pretty desolate at times. Cold rain, temps just hovering around freezing, and if it snows, it just looks nice for a day or two, then turns into dirty gray slush. For those of y’all not familiar with slush, it’s a mixture of snow, ice, dirt and salt that’s usually about a half inch deeper than the height of your shoes. If it’s less than that, it manages to find every crack and hole to seep into. It makes driving treacherous and walking even worse. The exception is when we get a hard freeze. The roads are all clean, sanded and salted, so driving isn’t a problem and most important, (to me at least) the Navesink River up past the Oceanic Bridge is frozen solid, so we have an eight mile by two mile stretch of solid ice for skaters, ice boaters, ice fishermen (mostly eelers) and if it snows on top of the ice, snowmobiles and cross-country skiers.
One of the towns holds a “Winter Carnival” and local merchants have a bonanza of out-of-town customers from all over the county. This carnival includes ice sculptures, skating competitions such as races and hockey games, and just a good time where you could bring the whole family to enjoy the booths selling hot cocoa and hot mulled cider, corn dogs, cotton candy, games of chance and go ice skating out on the river.
The eelers used to be a problem. They would chop holes in the ice, and as most of the river was only five or six feet deep, they would poke around in the mud with long handled, multi tined forks until they hit an eel hibernating in the mud. They’d pull it up onto the ice where it would promptly freeze, and they’d go after another. The trouble was that some of these holes were pretty big, and when they froze over, there would be a thin layer surrounded by solid ice. If a skater or ice boater went over it, they could break through and wind up in the water. Finally, the local towns surrounding the river got together and solved this problem by passing a law in each municipality that the holes could not be larger than 12 inches in diameter and not closer than 10 feet from one another. That way it was enforceable all across the ice.
Cross-country skiing is great because it’s perfectly flat and you can see for miles ahead of where you are going. You don’t have to worry about dodging trees or falling into holes or ditches, and most important, since you aren’t going down any hills, you don’t have to climb back up any hills, because what goes down must come up!
The river also becomes a mecca for ice boaters. Now, an ice boat is similar to a sailboat, except that instead of a hull, it has a set of runners mounted on a cross piece, a “keel” with a rudder and a tiny cockpit, usually holding one or two people. Ice boaters from as far away as New Hampshire and Wisconsin come to compete in the races. Most of the boats are small and light so they are easy for one or two people to transport and assemble. However, some of the bigger Class “A” boats are a treat to see. These are mostly old historic craft, some over 50 feet long which have been around for about 100 years. They only get a chance to sail every two or three years when the ice is thick enough to support them.
Ice boat racing is a COLD sport. Due to the extreme temperature and wind chill, you cannot have one square inch of skin exposed for fear of frostbite! Long underwear, heavy clothes, hats, gloves and scarves are required. Racers wear goggles and face masks, and sometimes crash helmets with full face shields.
For a race, the boats are all aligned by an official, and a cannon goes off signaling the start. Competitors wearing “creepers” (spiked soles clamped to their shoes) push the boats to give them a start and as soon as the sails catch the wind, they hop aboard and commence racing. It’s really eerie because unlike power boat, NASCAR or horse racing, it’s totally quiet except for the hiss of the runners and soft sound of the wind through the rigging. Ice boats can sail faster than the wind, because as they sail into the wind, it comes faster at the ice boat, so the boat accelerates, making the wind come faster, etc. Normally they cruise along between 15 and 40 miles an hour, but the world speed record for an ice boat was 121 miles per hour the last time I checked!
Snowmobiles also come from all over the county, as it gives them an unrestricted expanse of 16 square miles to play on! However, the skaters are not happy, until they arrange for an expanse of snow to be plowed and get the fire department to flood the area. Everyone with a snowplow and a four-wheel drive vehicle seems to get involved. Then the fire department floods the cleared area, so it freezes into a smooth surface.
I remember years ago, the ice was over 22 inches thick, and the firemen actually drove the fire engine out on the ice! This was a big deal, and it made all the local papers and TV news, so it became a tradition. Several years later, they had gotten a new fire engine. Naturally, everyone wanted to show off the fancy new piece of equipment, so it was driven out onto the ice, complete with red lights flashing, bell ringing, dog barking and sirens wailing. Unfortunately, no one realized that the new engine weighed quite a bit more than the old, and you guessed it! After spraying a few thousand gallons of water about, there was a deep rumble as the ice underneath it gave way. It slowly sank into the river! Fortunately, the water wasn’t very deep, so it was dragged out, covered with mud and seaweed.
I have no idea how long it’s going to take for global warming to make these stories a thing of the past, but it’s memories like this that I choose to preserve, rather than the dreary chill of the average winter.
Photo: provided by North Shrewsbury Ice Boat and Yacht Club