It’s been a half-dozen years or more since the members of Red Bank’s North Shrewsbury Ice Boat & Yacht Club had a decent run of home ice on what’s now called the Navesink River.
But hope springs annual for iceboaters.
Iceboaters enjoying hard water in 2018. Below, the town symbol on a lapel pin. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
On Monday, New Year’s Day, the club held its annual open house, its members watching in envy as a dozen or so Frostbiters in sailboats from the neighboring Monmouth Boat Club took to the cold but ice-free river.
Among the ice yachts on display in the NSIB&YC parking lot was the club’s treasure, the 136-year-old Rocket.
While the near-term weather forecast does not include a sustained freeze sufficient produce ice safe for sailing and skating, the iceboaters are ready once again to raise their sails on the river, said club Commodore John Oakley, seen in the photo at top.
“We will have ice,” Oakley told redbankgreen.
The larger of the club’s vessels last raced in 2015, on the Hudson River, while the Skeeters and other small racers have gotten out on the Navesink intermittently since, he said.
“Last year we came close. The year before we came even closer,” Oakley said. “But it’s coming. It’s coming. I feel it this year. There’s going to be ice.”
The NSIB&YC, formed in 1880, is the oldest ice racing organization in the United States. The borough’s official symbol is an image of an iceboat, as seen in the lapel pin above.
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