Most of us in Wisconsin are indoors today. Maybe you are in the shop working on runners, watching the weather, and waiting for the first sailable ice. It is a good moment to brush up on the racing rules. A little time now pays off later when the lake fills with boats and the pace picks up.
Cold air is settling in and much of the state is expecting up to ten inches of snow. The snow will help lock in the cold. Good news for ice making.
The Skeeter Iceboat Club has a set of short rule review videos on YouTube worth watching before the season starts. Link to Video Sailing Safe
The ISA & Renegade Championship Race Committee is cranking back up to find the location for the postponed 2025 ISA. The conference calls restart on November 30th. There is a cold front moving through Minnesota as I write this, with none of the sites yet frozen, so the current snow is just falling in open water. The following cold will close up the lakes and allow for the search to begin. Minnewaska and Battle Lakes are favored sites with their launch facilities.
The ISA Race Chairman believes that it should be possible for a DN Western Challenge by December 5th, with the two following weekends available for the ISA. Of course the weather will dictate the outcome. We will post Sunday 7 pm updates starting November 30th.
He’s done it again. DN sailor Paul Chamberland is first on the ice in North America, just as he was on November 22, 2023. He’s back on Owlseye Lake while visiting family near his home town of St. Paul, Alberta. This time Paul brought a crew of family and friends, and they spent the day taking turns on the two DNs he hauled north.
A strong start to the season, with temperatures forecasted to drop toward in the Four Lakes region which will help bring ice.
Ken Whitehorse with Daniel’s grandsons, Dash and Enzo. Kenny swears they kicked the tires and asked about the top end.
Last night the club gathered at the Fast Champion Iceboat Shop of Ken Whitehorse and Paul Krueger, for a combined meeting and celebration of many years of iceboat and auto racing shop excellence. The building, which has been a business, auto racing and iceboat shop, is soon to be demolished for redevelopment, so this night felt especially meaningful.
We had an excellent turnout of members and friends. After mingling and taking in the displays, we held club elections. Outgoing Commodore Daniel Hearn deserves our thanks. He set the record for longest consecutive term and served four years. Moving into the role of Commodore is Ron Rosten, formerly Vice Commodore. Elected Vice Commodore is Greg McCormick. We also thank Rhonda Arries who will continue as Treasurer, and I, your Secretary, will remain in that role.
Ken worked unbelievably hard to create what I think is the perfect representation of what an iceboat hall of fame should look like, not in a formal museum but right here in a shop. Paul’s Class A Skeeter RAMBLN was set up as part of the display; oil paintings by Harry Whitehorse, historic trophies, many photos and the most prestigious trophy of all, the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant, were all present. It was good to see so many faces. People sat in chairs or, when chairs ran out, on the springboard of Paul’s Skeeter. It was classic.
We shared stories. How the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant started around 1881 on the Hudson River for stern steerers, how the Roosevelt family were involved, how in 1951 Ed Rollberg from the Fox Lake Ice Yacht Club in Illinois went out and brought it to the Midwest, and how our own 4LIYC sailors including Bill Mattison, Dave Rosten, AJ Whitehorse, Ken Whitehorse and Paul Krueger have competed for it. We talked about the team race nature of the pennant and how the rivalry developed between the Lake Geneva Skeeter Iceboat Club and the Pewaukee Ice Yacht Club for it. Ken explained why 4LIYC boats are red and white and, to my surprise, it does not go back to matching Budweiser cans.
A giant thank you to Daniel Hearn for arranging the food and beverages, and most of all to Ken for all his hard work in assembling the evening and the display. It truly was a magical evening.
Iceboating has seen its share of firsts, and this may be another one. In the 1930s the stern-steerer DEBUTANTE showed up with the first aluminum runners, and Chuck Kotovic Jr. won the 1954 ISA with one of the first Dacron sails.
Now a new kind of experiment is underway. Tomasz Zakrzewski, a Polish DN sailor who has raced many championships on our lakes, has built what may be the first runner plank designed entirely by artificial intelligence. It was not a shortcut. Tomasz spent hours feeding the system with detailed files and measurements to train it. With enough data, the machine can analyze patterns and generate something that has never been built before.
This week marks a milestone for me — and possibly a first in the history of iceboating.
I have just finished building a runner plank designed entirely by artificial intelligence.
Over the past days, I trained an AI model by feeding it detailed information about more than 100 runner planks built over the last decade — including materials used, layup schedules, structural failures, stiffness measurements, field results, and performance notes. Based on this dataset, ChatGPT proposed its own optimized layup concept… and the design was so interesting that I decided to build it. Continue reading.
AI- generated examples of the type of keepsakes available on Gretchen’s website.
One of the greatest allies in iceboating is Gretchen Dorian. We have all watched her at the weather mark in bitter cold, waiting for the perfect shot. Her photos have carried this sport around the world. She is running a pre holiday sale on her site through December 15, and it is a good time to support the person who spends as much time on the ice as many of us who race and help with race committee.
You can order prints of your favorite shots or download digital images right away. You can also put them on coffee mugs, Christmas ornaments, coasters, and even fleece blankets. If you want prints delivered before Christmas in the USA, place those orders before December 1. Discounts run as high as forty five percent. These make simple gifts for sailors who already have every tool and every runner in the box.
Take a look at her site, enjoy the savings, and support the photographer who has been telling the story of this sport for years. gretchendorian.com
Iceboating has seen its share of firsts, and this may be another one. In the 1930s the stern-steerer DEBUTANTE showed up with the first aluminum runners, and Chuck Kotovic Jr. won the 1954 ISA with one of the first Dacron sails.
