In The News – AFTER 135 YEARS, RED BANK ICE BOATERS RELINQUISH CUP

by | Feb 9, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page, WSSA

Photo: Brian Donahue for Red Bank Green

ice sailors never forget! Talk about patience, this is next level. Congratulations to the Hudson River crew on winning back the Van Nostrand Cup after 135 years and for keeping this remarkable piece of ice sailing history alive. And thank you to Red Bank Green, the independent local news outlet, for giving this regatta practically play by play and for their continuing coverage of ice sailing at Red Banks.

As the boat built by 19th-century architect Archibald Rogers came to a stop after their second straight win in the best of three, skipper Luke Lawrence and sheet tender Max Lopez exchanged hugs and gloved high fives with friends and family. One of several drones filming the action crashed into the sail and fell to the ice.

Then, Lawrence paused for a quiet emotional moment, kneeling silently in the basket amid the hoots and hubbub.

“I did this one for pop pop,” he said a few moments later, referring to his grandfather, Bob Lawrence, a boat builder and sailor. “He won a lot of stuff, but never this one. So this one is for him. Read more

In The News: Iceboats Create a Frenzy

by | Feb 6, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page, WSSA

Photo: Red Bank Green

Iceboats returned to the frozen Navesink River and Red Bank, New Jersey reacted like Taylor Swift was in town. Fences were treated as optional, everyone wanted a front-row view.

Our good friends at the historic North Shrewsbury Ice Boat and Yacht Club and the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club are back racing for a Tiffany silver cup first made in 1886, while the public presses toward the ice like it’s the pit at Madison Square Garden. When iceboats appear, winter suddenly has a main event.

 

RED BANK: ICE BOATING “AMERICA’S CUP” ON TAP, WITH WARNINGS
By BRIAN DONOHUE

Stay out of the way of the ice boats. And stay off the construction site.

Those are the messages being sent by dual entities as Red Bank gets set to host the Van Nostrand Cup, an ice boat contest the NY Times in 2003 called possibly “the oldest and longest-deferred grudge match in sports history.”

For a second straight weekend, the frozen Navesink River is likely to draw not only ice boat race spectators to see it, but visitors looking to skate, frolic, or shoot selfies. Continue reading.

Beer Barons & Ice Sailing – The Ruppert Brewery of NY

by | Dec 24, 2023 | 2023-2024, Home Page

Oshkosh ice sailor Rosie McDonald getting ready to tap a Fauerbach beer on Lake Monona c 1955. Note the Fauerbach Brewery in the background. Photo: Carl Bernard slide collection.

Previous
Vassar Brewery, Iceboating’s First Iceboat Bar
Fauerbach Brewery Archives

After a day pulling sheet, there’s nothing quite like the camaraderie of fellow iceboaters reliving the day’s races over a cold dipper.

In 19th and 20th-century America, a unique correlation emerged among a specific industry – second-generation German beer brewers who had a passion for sports, all things fast, and ice sailing.

Besides the Vassar Brewery in New York (which had English roots), Pabst* in Milwaukee, and Madison’s favorite Fauerbach Brewery, Henry Bossett told me about another famous brewer who loved ice sailing: New York brewer George Ruppert. Furthermore, Jacob, George’s brother, owned the New York Yankees and famously signed Babe Ruth in 1919. In addition to being Vice President of the Yankees and president of the Ruppert Brewery, George was an active officer of New Jersey’s North Shrewsbury Iceboat and Yacht Club. In 1938, he organized a meeting at the brewery where 170 ice sailors attended and formed the Eastern Ice Yachting Association.

The newspapers of the time are full of stories about George and his fast, stern-steerer, PIRATE. In 1938, he jumped on the Skeeter bandwagon, one of the first in the East to acquire a front-steering iceboat from the Midwest, THE DARE. (See Skeeter Summit for Skeeter history.)

I couldn’t find any photos of PIRATE or THE DARE, but Brian Reid’s invaluable “White Wings and Black Ice” has pictures of another of Ruppert’s stern-steerers, DASH. In place of a picture of PIRATE, we’ll use a photo of Rosie McDonald getting ready for a cold dipper of Fauerbach beer on Lake Monona with the brewery in the background to represent the connection between breweries and ice sailing.

Learn More:
Jacob Ruppert’s Brewery
A Tour of the Ruppert Brewery in 1939
Jacob Ruppert Wikipedia Page
North Shrewsbury Iceboat & Yacht Club

*Soon to come, a post about the Pabst family and ice sailing.