With less than a month to go until the 50. Gold Cup DN World and European Championships, we continue our journey through the decades with the first European Championship and the following 1960s.
Read the previous article on the Birth of the Sport and the Origin of the Class here.
In Europe, the Netherlands and Austria pioneered in the establishment of international DN iceyacht racing. By 1964, there were almost 100 DNs racing in the Netherlands. After the Austrian Gerhard Jettmar (OE1) had joined the I.D.N.I.Y.R.A. (1962) as their first European member, the first successful Austrian Championship was sailed in 1965 with 12 entries.
THE FIRST EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP
Photos from the 1st European Icesailing Championship in 1966. Credits to Union Yacht Club, Neusiedl, Austria.
Shortly, the Austrian Fleet took the initiative of promoting icesailing by hosting the first European DN Ice Yacht Championship as well. The event was held on the 17th of January, 1966 at the Union Yacht Club in Neusiedl, Austria with a long-distance race around the lake–the first and last time that such a race was part of the event.
While the conditions had seemed favourable in the beginning, soon the ice was covered with several centimetres of new snow. However, this didn’t discourage the sailors from racing. The Dutch DNs had dominated the competition winning 9 places out of the first 12. The podium was occupied by Kees Kortenoever (H1) at the top, Jan Dick Wevers (H60) in 2nd and Hans Bergkvist (S1) in 3rd place. Konrad Gloeden of Germany and R.C. Hoefhamer of Holland had just missed the chance to be ranked among the top three.
At a meeting during the regatta, the European DN Ice Yacht Class organisation was established by the 42 members of 6 European countries in the presence of 2 members from the U.S.A. Representatives of these European fleets elected Kees Kortenoever as their first European Commodore.
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THE 1960’s
However, the Netherlands had not only provided sailors for the winners’ podium at this regatta, but was also the main power behind the exploration of icesailing opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, a small group of Dutch DN sailors led by Wim van Acker met with the Polish iceboaters (Monotype XV and 8 metre) on the then-new Zegrze Reservoir and introduced the DN in Poland in 1965. The model became an instant success in the country sparking government-sponsored programmes.
To read more about Polish icesailing history see this article by Romuald Rowecki (P25) in the 2019 May Issue of Runner Tracks.
From here eventually, through their icesailing contacts, the DNs made their way to Estonia and the U.S.S.R. in 1968. Wim van Acker had continued to be an influential member of the icesailing community holding multiple sport related offices in the following decades and documenting ice sailing events on his 16mm camera. These rolls of films have been passed on and digitised under the Wim van Acker project. See the collection here or at the end of the article.
In Hungary (M) the DN was introduced in 1966 by dr. Pál Sándor who brought one home from Austria. Pál played a key role in building the Hungarian fleet and also served as their national secretary until his death in 1978.
DNs made their introduction in the United Kingdom (K) in the late 1960s. Chris Williams (K1) RN/NATO officer, who was previously stationed in Canada (where he was also a founding member of the Nova Scotia Ice Yacht Club) had an essential role in the rising popularity of the class in the coming years. Eventually, the British DN Fleet joined IDNIYRA – Europe at the end of the 1970s. Apart from the extremely cold 1978-79 winter season in Scotland, DNs were mostly used for landsailing on beaches and airstrips in the UK.
It didn’t take long for the DN model to conquer the land as well. The first international competition of modern landyachts had been organised in February of 1967 on the African continent. 12 landyachts set out to cross the Sahara in the duration of a month or so.
The cover of the 1967 November issue of National Geographic and an excerpt from the IDNIYRA newsletter of 1967 April 11, reporting on sand sailing in the Sahara.
Article detailing the 1967 land sailing competition on Sahara Overland
The original NatGeo article on the Extreme Kites Forum
Ice-map detail of the race course for the 1967 European Championship in Sweden from the 1968 Dutch DN JOURNAAL Issue Nr.17.
The races of the 1967 European DN Ice Yacht Championship were held between the 4th and 9th of March in the centre of Stockholm, Sweden on softening spring ice. The race course was laid out north of the city centre of Stockholm, on the part of the Stora Värtan where a straight track of 1500-2000 metres could easily be plotted for any wind direction. Last year’s Dutch sweep of the reigning titles had seemed unlikely to repeat as the frozen snow-covered ice was unfamiliar for them the first day, but after a long night of changing their angle runners, many finished ahead of the pack the next few days. The Swedish, familiar with the conditions, had also secured many positions at the top, but there were also Austrian and American sailors among the first 10.
The 1967 European Championship results from the North American newsletter.
The next year, for the 1968 DN Europeans, the sailors returned to the Union Yacht Club on the Neusiedler See. After the first race a storm blew the ice out so racing continued further south on the lake for one more day.
The 1969 DN European Championship regatta was organised by the Baltische Segler Verein, on a smooth and wet Steinhuder Meer. The BSV is a combination club of the pre-war German iceboaters from Estonia and Riga that were displaced by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939 and the ones from East Prussia that were chased out by the Red Army in 1944.
By the end of the 1960s, the DN had established itself as one of the most popular iceboat classes in Europe, being present in over 12 countries. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the North American Championships had been regularly organised from the 1950s onward. All together, this created a demand for a truly international global competition.
The Wim van Acker Project playlist on YouTube
Join us in the celebration by attending the 50. Gold Cup DN World & European Championships between 2024.02.3-10!
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