Sunday, December 31, 2023
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Ice Yachts at the FDR Welcome Center all rigged...
No sign of cold here in the Hudson Valley, but you can still hope as you check out a trio of fully rigged historic Hudson River stern steerers. Come to the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home in Hyde Park NY. Boats will be there through the first week of January 2024.
Kriss, Cyclone, 999 (l-r) just enough space between the rafters!
Cyclone, 999
Set up crew after finishing rigging. (only one of us had to go back home to retrieve the forgotten mast hoops...)
At the home of the Vice Commodore (1908) of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club....
This Photo courtesy of Tom Smith.
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Ice Yachts at the FDR historic site in Hyde Park, December 21- January 7, 2024.
The Hudson River Ice Yacht Club will be displaying several ice boats at the FDR Library & Museum this holiday season. We will set up Kriss, Cyclone & 999 in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/
Set up day is Wednesday 12/20 and they will be on display through January 6, 2024. This will be the 3rd time we have partnered with the National Park Service to set up, display and educate about the historic Ice yachts of the Hudson River. We set up FDR's Hawk in 2016: We also participated in the Ice Boat Expo in 2014
The boats can be seen -- with full rigging -- in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home, during regular operating hours (9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.), with free admission. The facilities are closed on Christmas and New Years Day. For more information visit @hudsonrivericeboats on Instagram and www.hriypt.org. Come to Hyde Park - the display is free at the Wallace Visitor Center.
a bit about the 3 boats...
Kriss was built in 1898 by George Buckhout of Poughkeepsie for John A. Roosevelt. Like most of the antique ice yachts, it is a gaff-rigged sloop design. John A. Roosevelt, FDR’s uncle, was an avid ice boater, being one of the original members of the Poughkeepsie Ice Yacht Club (1861), and, later, commodore of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club (1885). He had a small fleet of ice boats that sailed off of Roosevelt Point. His most famous ice yacht was Icicle, which was 4-time winner of the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant of America. Roosevelt enjoyed sailing his smaller yachts, including Kriss, in his later years. His daughter, Ellen Crosby Roosevelt, was a skilled ice boat sailor, who occasionally raced Kriss. Ex-commodore Robert Wills maintains and sails this boat.
John A. Roosevelt at the tiller of Kriss (not Vixen) on the Hudson, 1902
Length: 22’
Plank: 13’
Sail area: 215 sq ft
Cushions: Horsehair
Year built: 1898
FDR’s uncle John A. Roosevelt, sailing Kriss, 1902.
(above) Cyclone sails on the Hudson River near Barrytown, NY 2014
Cyclone was built by Charles Van Loan in Hyde Park, N.Y. in 1900 for Herman Livingston Rogers, son of Archibald Rogers. Rogers was a neighbor & good friend of the Roosevelt’s. The Rogers’ family had one of the largest collections of ice boats in the mid-Hudson area at the turn of the century. Included among their boats was Archie Rogers’ Jack Frost, 4-time winner of the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant of America. Cyclone sailed the Hudson River off of the Rogers estate, Crumwold Hall in Hyde Park. Cyclone is maintained and sailed by Brian & Lisa Reid of Red Hook.
Length: 19’ 6” Plank: 13’ 10” Sail area: 200 sq ft Cushions: Horsehair
Year built: 1900
Herman Livingston Rogers, sailing Cyclone, off Hyde Park, 1901, He was about 9 years here.
Setting up Cyclone, at Rogers Point, on the Hudson, circa 1901.
Fun Fact: Herman Rogers later moved to France. He gave away Wallis Simpson at her marriage to the Duke of Windsor at Rogers’ estate in France in 1937. ( see a picture here)
Cyclone stayed in Hyde Park, and was sold at auction in the 30s when many items from the estate were sold.
999
The 999 was owned by George Bodenstein, the last of the family to own and operate the Staatsburgh Ice Tool Company, in Staatsburgh, NY, the small hamlet just north of Hyde Park. It was was named for the famous locomotive, the "999", of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, that was clocked at a speed of 112 miles per hour in 1893.
It is likely that she was built shortly after 1893. It is built along the style of the siderail design and uses iron rods for its rigging. 999 is maintained and sailed by former commodore, Chris Kendall, Rhinebeck.
Length: 26' 10"
Plank: 13'
Sail Area: 230 sq ft.
Year: circa 1895
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Hudson Winter Walk 2023
A nice turnout at Hudson's annual Winter Walk, first weekend of December. The display team set up the Hudson River Ice Yacht WHIFF. She's one of the oldest stern steerers around, built in 1875-76.
Some history of WHIFF
Images here of Whiff model, built by Jacob Buckhout, circa 1876
Whiff, displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial
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