Sculptures resembling a hamburger, an anchor, a Barbie doll, King Kong and nearly three dozen other figures were just big blocks of ice moments ago — that is, before the fastest ice carver in the world ripped through them with the speed of a chainsaw and the precision of an artist.
Rich Daly carved 225 blocks of ice — a whopping 70,000 pounds — for Port Jefferson’s fifth annual Ice Festival on Saturday.
This was no race. He said it took about three weeks of preparation. “I'm on like hour-36, straight,” he said.
A decade ago, Daly became the world’s fastest ice carver, according to Guinness World Records. “Back in 2013, I carved 18,000 pounds of ice into 61 different carvings in two hours and 52 minutes,” Daly said, “surpassing the old record by over an hour and a half.”
“So now we're 11 years in, and it's still my record, thankfully,” he said.
Daly stood before a 300-pound block of crystal clear ice. He took a moment to sketch out his design using a small pick. And with a wink to the crowd forming several feet behind him, he revved his chainsaw.
Daly glided through like butter.
“A chainsaw does the primary work to give it its shape. We use a bunch of different grinders with bits, specialty bits to give all the detail and so forth like the feathers and so forth,” he said. “A six-prong chipper is, you know, is how it all started, I guess. Chisels definitely are still a part of the ice carving world.”
“But for today's society, speed means everything, you know, production and so forth. So power tools are the way to go,” Daly added.
Above freezing temperatures and his special ice make it quick work for the chainsaw. The ice is unlike what comes from a refrigerator. “This ice is made in a single-direction freezing,” he said. “So you get the impurities in the air and you center our ice with circulating pumps presumably from the bottom and grows over three to five days. And we basically cut that off so we have crystal clear ice.”
It all started in 2000 when he attended Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, studying culinary.
“It was the centerpiece for a buffet,” he said. “Honestly there's only really two ways [to get into this] you either go to art school or culinary school.”
Daly now carves ice for a living. He owns the business Ice Memories in Mastic Beach, still competing and doing parties and events like this. He is next in Sag Harbor for HarborFrost this Saturday, and then back in Port Jefferson on Sunday for his grand finale.
As Daly put the finishing touches on this ice sculpture, he sent a flurry of snow and ice over the heads of nearby kids.
In just 20 minutes, he turned the block of ice into the wingspan of a dove.
