Ken Rich and Dale Young had each been sailing the Maine coast for years before they met. The 71-year-old Rich thought it would be a great idea to be able to sail during the interminable layoff called a Maine winter. His friend agreed. Or was it Young’s idea and Rich agreed. Things can get confusing when you’re thinking outside the box, something these men have been doing for years.

Winter sailing means ice boating. Ice boating to the uninitiated means the venerable DN. Named the best iceboat design in a 1936 contest held by the Detroit News, the DN reminds one of a plank skewered by a mast holding a sail attached to three skate blades. Needless to say it is fast and looks tippy. The sailor is cautioned to wear all kinds of safety equipment in case of emergency.

Here’s where Rich and Young’s thinking outside the box came in. First off, it had to be wooden, and Rich added, “we wanted it to be traditional.” Ken Rich worked in Bud McIntosh’s New Hampshire boat shop while a student at the University of New Hampshire in the late 50s. In his later years McIntosh, one of the gurus of the wooden boat revival, wrote a definitive book on the building of wooden boats that was published by WoodenBoat Publications in Brooklin and illustrated by Camden’s Sam Manning. For years Rich has sailed a McIntosh designed and built schooner, Advent. Young restored and sails a Friendship sloop that was built by Rich’s father. It’s all one big, wood-loving family.

In keeping with the family theme, Rich and Young settled on The Apprenticeshop, located on Main Street in Rockland, to build their dream. Visionary Lance Lee started The Apprenticeshop at the Bath Marine Museum in the mid 1970s. Since then it has had homes in Rockport, Nobleboro and now operates under the nonprofit auspices of the Atlantic Challenge. Rich is a former board member.

At The Apprenticeshop men and women of all ages pay tuition to come and live and work together under master boat builders. From the beginning, Lee adopted the philosophy of the English educator, Kurt Hahn, who thought that education should teach students that thought and action are more important when used together rather than one or the other. Kurt Hahn also founded Outward Bound, an educational program, which has operated an outpost on Hurricane Island for decades.

Rich and Young chose their design from the cover of an old WoodenBoat magazine. Issue No. 92 featured a picture of a Great South Bay Scooter. This is a boat that evolved from the work boats and duck hunting boats used on the south coast of Long Island, N.Y. in the late 1800s. Men in the predecessor of the Coast Guard, who manned the offshore lighthouses, used the boats as taxis to go back and forth.

Unlike the DNs, if the ice beneath you gives way to a medium of more liquid consistency, with a Great South Bay Scooter you are sailing in a real boat that will float and keep moving forward toward more ice. It may not be as fast as the DNs but the Long Island races early in the last century reported times surpassing 60 mph on the great stretches of clear sea ice.

Equipped with a place to build and a design, things began to come together in the early fall of 2005. Lisa “I’ll spell it for you,” Zygowski, a 24 year-old native of Niagara Falls, Ontario, had arrived at The Apprenticeshop last summer. Lisa had been a cabinetmaker who decided that building boats was “more exciting than building furniture.” As a descendent from a family of Norwegian boat builders it was something she “always felt she wanted to do.”

Bella Pierson, 29, was raised in Woodstock, Vt. She had been working at a desk job in New York City when dissatisfaction with that life and environment caused her to seek the relative quiet of Rockland and The Apprenticeshop. The Scooter project was the first boat she has worked on.

That almost completes the cast, except, of course, for Kevin Carney, the master builder who supervised the project and, incidentally, made a lot of the hardware from cast bronze. It is interesting to note that The Apprenticeshop had never before constructed an iceboat.

Approximately five months later, on a day that was so bright that your eyes hurt and cold enough to remind the bystander that just about any place on earth was warmer, the Maine version of the Great South Bay Scooter made its appearance on Chickawaukee Pond in Rockland. An increasing wind from the northwest gave hope of a great sailing afternoon. Unfortunately, a snowfall the previous week had stuck to the ice in spots so there was not the prolonged run of clear ice surface hoped for.

Sitting still on the ice, the boat, aptly named the Snow Goose, is a thing of beauty. The craft is shaped like a 16-foot saucer with a white jib and mainsail. The gaff rig gives it an old look, reminiscent of a sturdier age. The massive, clear-finished bowsprit hints at the best in materials and craftsmanship. It’s not often you can take a work of art out for a Sunday afternoon sail.

The materials have a Maine connection. Several years ago, Dale Young salvaged some spruce from the floor of a house being demolished. It wound up on the boat’s deck with its edges and the grain showing. The frames are oak-steamed to form the appropriate curves. Inside the coaming that surrounds the cockpit is a single piece of cherry steamed to fit. The hull is made of half-inch cedar planks stained a natural color. Attached to the four white oak runners are strips of stainless steel, which enables the boat to fly across the ice.

Daniel Bennett captained at the ice trials. It seems neither of the owners had been in an iceboat and he has considerable experience sailing both ice- and blue-water boats. The captain stands on the deck next to the mast and handles a line from the jib sheet. Turning and stopping are accomplished by weight shifts of the captain and passenger. Iceboats don’t have rudders. It’s perhaps more important to remember that they don’t have brakes. It also follows that, depending on their speed, they don’t stop on a dime.

After giving each of the builders a ride around the pond, it was time for one of the owners to climb aboard. Ken Rich was about to undergo back surgery followed by a hip-replacement later in the spring. It had been suggested that perhaps the ride would be too rough for his ailing frame. Needless to say, soon they were enjoying a trip down Chickawaukee Pond as the breeze freshened. As Dale Young put it, “that sure puts a smile on your face in the middle of the winter.”

The afternoon was not without drama as watchers soon saw something was wrong when the jib suddenly flew out of Captain Bennett’s control. “There we were headed for a group of people with open water behind them hellbent for election and we couldn’t stop. Oh my God that was a close call. But I sure had a wonderful time.” Just telling the story brought a wide grin to Rich’s face.

It didn’t take long to discover that the shackle pin holding the jib to the bowsprit had come loose and fallen out. Bennett backtracked, found the pin on the ice and brought boat and passenger back to the landing.

That could be the end but it never is when you’re dealing with boats and people. Snow Goose is named for Rich’s first boat, which he acquired as a teen and owned for 15 years. “I hated to part with that boat and I shouldn’t have. My life has been different ever since.” On a recent Sunday in Maine, the Snow Goose was back, and flying.

Chuck Veeder can be reached at veederc@adelphia.net.