Careful what you wish for – Part I


Not many sailors only ever have one go in a DN ice yacht. US sailor Steve Orlebeke explains why…


One hundred kilometres per hour down- wind in 15kt of breeze. That’s what got me hooked. And I am terribly hooked. This past January I drove 1,000 miles


from Wisconsin across Minnesota and North Dakota to a lake in eastern Montana to sail in the North American DN Championship. Some sailors drove over 2,000 miles from the east coast including regatta winner James Thieler. DNers will travel a long way at short notice in search of good conditions. Find- ing smooth ice with no snow on it and good wind can be challenging. But when conditions come together the DN iceboat provides some of the fastest, most compet- itive, affordable and most exhilarating sail- ing on the planet. That is what drives us. The DN iceboat is the most popular ice-


boat class in the world and today there are active fleets in around 20 countries. DNs


40 SEAHORSE


are sailing and racing in North America, northern Europe and as far east as Lake Baikal and Vladivostok in Russia. A strong international governing body exists and is crucial to the success of the class. Since this class is intended to be fully


suitable for homebuilding comprehensive specifications also exist. A six-member technical committee is tasked with fielding questions and interpreting the specs. There are also excellent commercial builders on both continents if that’s the route you choose to go. The DN Gold Cup World Championship alternates between North America and Europe every year. Results in the Gold Cup regatta along with the annual North American and European Championships are the three events that define a sailor’s world ranking. The DN was conceived in the hobby


shop of the Detroit News newspaper in the mid 1930s. The original idea was to come up with an affordable, home-buildable iceboat to provide winter entertainment during the Depression. The design evolved through the late


1930s and ’40s at the whim of the sailors. In 1953 a group of DN sailors got together


at Clifford Cartwright’s house on Cass Lake, Michigan and outlined a class constitution and the first set of design specifications. They also started an annual regatta which today is called the North American Championship. In 1962 the International DN Ice Yacht


Racing Association was formed. In 1972 the North American and European groups reached across the pond and organised the first Gold Cup World Championship which was sailed in Michigan and won by Estonian sailor Ain Vilde. Today in 2020 the DN class constitu-


tion, bylaws and specifications still reflect the ideas of the original founders. And 90 years after it first appeared, in contrast with many of the longest-established wet yachting classes, the DN remains an affordable, home-buildable one-design. It just happens to run on ice. The size of the class and level of regatta participation prove that this is a winning formula. However, the DN of today is a far cry


from those original boats, but the DNA is the same. There are two main components to the basic platform: the fuselage and the runner plank. The fuselage is the piece that


TOMASZ ZAKRZEWSKI


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