Attention Iceboat Clubs: NIYA 2025–26 Dues Notice

by | Oct 22, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page, NIYA, WSSA

2025 Northwest. Photo – Jim Stevenson

Iceboat club secretaries and treasurers, take note! It’s time to send in your Northwestern Ice Yachting Association 2025–26 club dues. Details in the PDF.

The Best Ice Comes Early: 2025 ISA Updates & Dues Reminder

by | Oct 22, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page, ISA

Photo: Rick Myslinski; Class A Skeeter Tom Hyslop and Ken Whitehorse

ISA Home Page
Via International Skeeter Association Secretary/Treasurer Steve Schalk:

Greetings everyone,

While the 2024-25 season is still not complete, it is time for the fall dues notice for next season. Dues are $25 and are payable by November. You can send a check or use the on line payment on iceboat.org. There is a Paypal fee for that, so a check is your low cost option. Click here to pay dues online.

 

Remember that the 2025 ISA is going to happen in December most likely in Minnesota. News on that will come out each week beginning shortly after Thanksgiving.

 

The best ice in Minnesota is always in December!

 

Steve Schalk
Secretary/Treasurer
International Skeeter Association

Swap meet on!!! 10 am at Lake Geneva Yacht Club tomorrow!!! Oct 19

by | Oct 18, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page

Lake Geneva Swap Meet — Sunday, October 19, 10 AM
Lake Geneva Yacht Club
1250 S Lake Shore Dr,
Fontana-On-Geneva Lake, WI

Via our southern friends at the Skeeter Ice Boat Club in Lake Geneva:

Hey Iceboaters!

Weather forecast just keeps improving! Rain should be gone by 8am followed by an awesome NW breeze to dry things out.
1250 S Lakeshore Drive, Fontana is your address. PLEASE PLAN ON ARRIVING NO EARLIER THAN 9AM! Folks will be on the grounds to help you get parked and unloaded. Mary Jane Schalk has, as always, been invaluable. She has arranged food and beverages for the event and sent me a photo of where we intend to set up things.

 

A special thank you to fellow ice boaters and LGYC leaders, Tom Lothian and Maru Urban. Tom has helped us get use of the club and supplied beverages while Maru has worked his butt off moving boats and clearing space for our event. Thanks, guys! Maru is cleaning up building storage and moved several of our member NItes down to the pad. If you store your Nite at LGYC come use the event as a tune up. SR Marine and Dave’s Machining will be on hand so come get your boat ready to sail this season.

Nites on parade.

Incidentally, I saw that Maru posted a picture on the Nite page of the aforementioned boats he lined up. Be advised! These boats may not yet be for sale?? ( but slipping your business card into the cockpit with an offer might be worth the trip).

We like tacos.

Again, come hungry! The food will be awesome as will the bloody bar… See you all tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Thompson
Past Commodore SIBC

A Captain for All Seasons: Erik Sawyer

by | Oct 14, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page, WSSA

From Great Lakes freighters to iceboats on Lake Monona, Captain Erik Sawyer keeps the season going year-round aboard MICHIGANDER. Photo by Gretchen Dorian.

Erik Sawyer likes big boats, whether he is at the helm of a Great Lakes freighter or behind the wheel of his magnificent modern Stern Steerer, MICHIGANDER. Fellow Stern Steerer sailor and WSSA Secretary Andy Gratton recently toured the Soo Locks and was surprised to spot a photo of his friend Erik, recognized as the captain of the first ship to arrive at the Soo Locks for the 2025 shipping season on March 21. Perfect timing, right around when the ice went out. Andy and his wife Ann left a note for all to see, proudly pointing out that this captain also commands on the hardwater.

Swap Meet This Sunday, October 19 @ Lake Geneva Yacht Club

by | Oct 13, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page


Via Skeeter Iceboat Club’s Jason Thompson, a friendly reminder to save your Sunday morning for one of the biggest and best iceboat swap meets in the world!
Find a swap meet in your area here.

Lake Geneva Swap Meet — Sunday, October 19, 10 AM
Lake Geneva Yacht Club
1250 S Lake Shore Dr,
Fontana-On-Geneva Lake, WI

Iceboaters,

COME HUNGRY! 10am this Sunday kicks off our iceboat season with the SIBC swap at LGYC (1250 S Lakeshore Drive. Fontana).

Oh, we got a good one for you… Breakfast and lunch burritos with a bloody bar on demand! Been awhile since you have been to LGYC? Come tour the place to check out what has changed. We are pulling out a lot of iceboats from deep storage at the club– should be fun.

Got a Nite to sell? You will do it if you come to the swap. The hottest fleet going at SIBC is our Nite fleet and sailors are looking for boats.
Got a trailer that fits a Nite? You can sell that too.

Two B skeeters, DN sails, skeeter sails helmets, track spikes are some of the items we have heard about. Send items you are looking to buy or sell TODAY.

Cozzens’ Hudson River Stern-Steerers

by | Sep 24, 2025 | 2025-2026, Home Page, WSSA


I’ve seen this watercolor many times over the years, but never gave it much thought until Greg Whitehorse brought it to my attention after he caught an episode of Antiques Roadshow where someone brought in a Fred S. Cozzens painting and mentioned they also owned one of his iceboat scenes.
Frederic Schiller Cozzens (1846–1928) was an American marine painter and illustrator. Among his works is this 1884 chromolithograph, Ice Boating on the Hudson, published as Plate XXV in American Yachts: Their Clubs and Races. The scene doesn’t just show iceboats in general, Cozzens carefully depicted some of the Hudson River’s most famous stern-steerers of the time: AVALANCHE, GYPSIE, ICICLE, HAZE, WHIFF, and ECHO.
A version of this image is attributed to the Ray Ruge Collection at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. For more information on these boats and their history, visit Brian Reid’s invaluable White Wings and Black Ice website, which documents the Hudson River fleets in remarkable detail..