Iceboats took on their modern configuration, with smaller, comparatively lightweight hulls and a single skate mounted at the front, for better control.
FORBES: Shiver Me Timbers
2.
This was the prevailing design in the mid-1800s, when wealthy Hudson River families like the Roosevelts and the Gildersleeves adapted traditional Dutch iceboats into lightning-quick sporting machines that raced--and often beat--the fastest steam locomotives plying the Hudson's banks.