Countdown for Formula Ice
An ice sledge looks harmless. Three runners, a sail, a couple of ropes. And on the seat a driver dressed up in a kind of sleeping bag, dressed up in a funny way. That's Robby from the "Wasserferienwelt im-jaich" in Lauterbach. He wears a helmet on his head, glasses protect his eyes, his shoes have spikes and his hands are in thick mittens. Two ice picks hang around his neck. Even in summer, when he cuts through the Greifswalder Bodden with his lightning-fast catamaran, you could call him "Rasende Robby". But here, on the glassy, frozen Puddeminer Wiek in front of Gustow, it looks more like "Rasender Roland". Because the Rügen narrow-gauge railway of the same name, chugging along comfortably, seems like a Trabi compared to a racing car compared to Robby's sledge.
At least when he gets going. Robby adjusts the sail to the wind, releases the brake and – pfft. Where is he? In no time at all, his vehicle shoots like a rocket into the blue horizon and would certainly disappear behind it if the icy Bodden had no shore. But the sled suddenly turns to the right – Robby scrapes off, so to speak, the crunching of the runners can still be heard from some distance. In a breakneck almost 180-degree turn, he dodges other sailors, glides around a reed island, disappears behind the thatch and was probably never seen again.
Wait, there he is again, his sleigh is slow now, the panicked seagulls land at a safe distance, cursing. But the "engine", i.e. the wind, starts howling again, and a blink of an eye later Robby is once again racing across the ice like a giant arrow. Just watching him gives you a rush of speed.
After a few minutes, Robby comes sweeping up, pulls on the brakes, smoke, no, ice crystals swirl up, the sled stops. And Robby looks like he just beat Sebastian Vettel.
The comparison to Formula One is not so far-fetched. An ice sled is part of Formula Ice, which is not much slower than the four-stroke racing circuit, but much more environmentally friendly: no noise, no smell of petrol, and no excavator has to be brought to the race track and no citizens' group has to protest against it. Unfortunately, there are no scantily clad girls waving at the start, unless one of those pit girls is hardened. And when the wind dies down, pushing doesn't help either, but at least everyone gets it.
Otherwise, racing on the ice is at least as breathtaking as the popular roundabout at the Nürburgring. And sometimes just as dangerous - if you fall through and don't have an ice pick hanging around your neck to pull yourself out of the water. Or if you don't know how to brake with the spikes. Or if you crash into dozing swans. Or if you... "Or if you stand around too long," says Robby and asks me to get into the sleigh.
If I had to paint a picture of the next few minutes, it would look like a blurry watercolor. Nothing is clear anymore, everything is rushing past me, the reeds, the bank, the trees, the houses behind the field, all a colorful jumble. A bit of black in the middle - I was unconscious. If I had been able to write, my notes would have said: "Ahhh!", "Noooo!", "Oh God!" and maybe the question "How high are we flying?"
It all started so comfortably with ice sailing. That was in Holland in the 17th century, and the sledges were still boats with runners mounted underneath. This meant that small loads could be transported quickly across rivers and lakes in winter. Ice sledges are also known from Mongolia, where they were used for fishing. A racing scene soon established itself, but in the absence of real competition, they competed against trains. At the time, these were still steam locomotives, but the "runner grenades" would not have looked bad against modern ICE trains either. The speed record for an ice sledge is said to be 230 kilometers per hour. It was set in 1938 on Lake Winnebago in the USA. At that time, the wind was said to have been hurricane-force, but stronger breezes are sufficient for the usual speed of around 100 km/h. These are now also used by kiters who hold a kite on their skates, or surfers with boards and correspondingly modified surf rigs. However, they cannot keep up with the ice sleds.
Because they, barely stopped by annoying friction with the ground, can even go faster than the wind that they need to propel them. They can actually overtake the wind! It's like a car driver outrunning his diesel. "That happens when you're tacking," says sailing instructor Robby, and then goes on to explain the phenomenon. I wasn't really listening though, because I was still dizzy from dancing with the "Boddenporsche."
There are now various boat classes, ranging in size up to a real yacht, the most common of which is the DN class, the sled also known as a "beach sailor". The class is named after a standard introduced by the Detroit News newspaper, which stipulates a sail area of 6,5 square meters and a hull length of 3,60 meters. There are home-made boats and jewel-encrusted ice rockets for the mighty son of the desert, there are national, European and world championships, there are idolized champions of the caliber of Michael Schumacher and of course expensive outfitters who offer everything from carbon-hard shoe spikes (after all, they are used for braking) to large-capacity sails. What is missing is an ice lake with a built-in freezing unit, because ice sailors are still dependent on the cold season for their hobby.
A couple of water-cooled runners might also be helpful, I think as I see Robby romping across the Puddeminer Wiek again. With his hot shoes, the ice beneath him will probably melt soon. Suddenly there is a huge bang, perhaps that was the jet plane high above the lake.
