COOL NJ ICEBOAT

This just in from small craft and DN enthusiast Ed Thieler down in MD- He found this little DN-like beauty down in NJ recently. His report here:

“As you know NJ has a long and proud ice yachting heritage. I found this one on display at the tuckerton baymen’s museum.

Note the cockpit cover – those Jersey guys put covers on many of their small boats, especially sneakboxes and melon seeds, primarily to keep out snow, leaves, and varmints when the boats are not in use.

Note the hinge – you can sit in the cockpit with feet covered and just your head and shoulders out – this is exactly how they hunt from a sneakbox – set out your decoys, pull it up on the marsh shore, sit in it, shotgun in hand, and call in the ducks. the earliest sneakboxes even had the daggerboard trunk off center, on the cockpit side, for more room to sit.

Except for the garish patriotic paint job – no ‘camo’ here – i wonder if an iceboat was ever used that way?”

Think Ice! From MD

Ed Thieler
Easton, MD