Sailing To Nowhere

The sight of a sail boat tipped over on its side on frozen Schroon Lake has caught the eye of many this weekend, and left us all scratching our heads. The boat is about 500 yards south of the Town Dock. So how did the boat get there and what's its future?

By no means are we experts in "beached boats", but we are going out on a mast here and suggesting the vessel is one of those fast, racing boats, that skim across the ice, with a good wind in its sails. That assumption is based on a story we did last year on ice boat racing. In that report, reader and boater Bill Bernhard gave us a terrific history of ice boat racing:

They had their origin in the early 1900's as a working class boat for Bay Men on the Great South Bay of Long Island NY. What makes them unique compared to a typical Ice Boat is that they have no tiller or rudder. They are steered by trimming the Jib and Mainsail along with shifting the weight of the crew. There also is no runner or blade typical of most ice boats, instead they have strips of metal on the bottom of the hull. Lastly and most importantly they will float and sail like a normal soft water sailboat when the ice gives way or runs out. They are still actively raced today. 
On the south end of Schroon Lake there are three more conventional iceboats sailing until the snow comes.

Do you know anything about the boat on the ice and how it came to be out there? Let all of us head scratchers know, by sharing your wisdom in our comments section.