1968 USSR Championship

by | Mar 16, 2017 | WSSA

Via WSSA Secretary/Treasurer Andy Gratton alerts us to this really interesting Youtube video: “Matt Critchley found this video. Wing-sails on stern steerers, all they need is a bubble canopy. I don’t even see any wires on these boats. Everyone should see these boats.”

Ole Evinrude’s Ice Boats

by | Mar 16, 2017 | WSSA

Ole Evinrude, inventor of the first reliable outboard boat motor, also built and sold stern-steerers in his factory for a brief time during the 1920s in Wisconsin.

The only reference I’ve been able to find online to Evinrude ice boats is from the Rudder Magazine of February 1922. Evinrude exhibited an ice boat at the New York Power Boat Show that year. (Enter the search term “ice boat” on this link, quite a bit about ice boats in this magazine.)

The caption in the magazine reads “Evinrude Motor Company: A novelty will be a fully rigged Class F ice boat.” Intrestingly enough, here’s another photo with an “F” on the sail. Thanks to Mike Peters for the photos.

UPDATE: Mark Weiner writes: “Saw the photo’s from Mike Peters of the old Evinrudes posted. I though you might like some photos of an old Evinrude ( or at least parts of one) as it exists today. The boat is “Spindler”. Acquired about ten years ago and refurbished by Dan Tess and Mark Wiener. Home port of Fond du Lac. As you can see by the photos some parts have been rebuilt through the years, but there are may signs of the old boat still there. The most obvious is the tail block. The runners, and the plugged holes in the plank for the saddle brackets. The mast is now a banana, but the sail cut looks much the same, and is still cotton. We are still doing work on her each year to make her sail better, but we do intend to keep her looking as original as possible. Where ever we set up, Spindler seems to be a crowd pleaser and a calling card for the sport.

We do sail the “B class” with the WSSA when ever possible. We are not the most competitive boat in the fleet, but we would like to see many of the old boats come out and sail with us. If we could get enough old boats on the ice we could start a cotton sail division.

The photos enclosed were taken during a Spring rigging improvement day a few years ago.”

P1010074
P1010073
P1010072
P1010067

1948 Northwest at Geneva Lake

by | Mar 8, 2017 | NIYA


I came across these photos while searching through the Life Magazine photo archives for the 1962 issue with a Pewaukee Skeeter on the cover. It brought me back to a few weeks ago, sitting on Bill and Mauretta Mattison’s lake side porch with a group of old friends who gathered to reminisce about the stern steerers MENACE, MARY B, and Madison iceboating history. Bill shared the story of the time he crewed for Jim Lunder on FRITZ at the 1948 Northwest and how they won the regatta. The last A stern steerer race was sailed in dimming light at the end of the day. During the race, Bill and Jim sailed into Williams Bay which was not a good place to be sailing an iceboat in near darkness because at that time, ice was harvested there and slabs of ice were piled all over the bay. With a lot of luck, Jim Lunder piloted the FRITZ around the ice blocks without hitting them and made it to the finish line in the darkness. Life’s photos from that regatta are posted here. Northwest regatta winners posted here.

Jim Lunder And Bill Mattison Pushing Their Boat Off To Start A Race
Jim Lunder & Bill Mattison push off the FRITZ
Jim Lunder And Bill Mattison At Northwest
Mattison & Lunder
Evron Kline Photos
Evron Kline photos
2 2 1948 Janesville Daily Gazette
Janesville Gazette Recap
2 2 1948
2 2 1948 2
PROGRAM

1947 Northwest

by | Mar 7, 2017 | NIYA

A55 is an A Class Stern-Steer TAKU, currently owned by the Schloemer family in Lake Geneva, WI

1947 Northwest: Post WW2 Boom Years Begin

After a 5 year hiatus because of World War 2, the first post-war Northwest was held at Oshkosh in 1947. 4LIYC’s FRITZ (with new owners, the Lunder brothers and Carl Bernard at the helm) won the A stern steerer trophy. Ed Rollberg, who would go on to bring the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant to the midwest a few years later, won the E Skeeter title. Iceboaters who served in WW2 came back with new ideas about boat building, particularly the great Elmer Millenbach. More about Elmer next time.
Shortly before the 1947 Northwest, Eastern iceboater, Ray Ruge, wrote an in depth article in Yachting Magazine about the state of iceboating in North America. Read it here.

Skeeters. Note the lack of springboards.