by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 28, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page
This season, major media outlets rediscovered ice sailing.
A few weeks ago, before the latest storm buried the East Coast in snow, strong ice and clear wind brought the Van Nostrand Challenge Cup back to the Navesink River in Red Bank. The historic race ignited a wave of attention. Reporters from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NPR took notice of ice sailing. Historic iceboats and clubs filled social media feeds with photos and video. The audience expanded in a way we rarely see.
That attention helps recruit new sailors and preserve historic clubs whose traditions stretch back more than a century. It reminds the public that this is not a curiosity, but a serious winter sport with deep American roots and active fleets from Montana to Maine.
For decades, people have asked: why not the Olympics? In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were formal discussions with the International Sailing Federation about bringing ice sailing into the Winter Games. Meetings were held. Surveys were conducted. A purpose-built Olympic ice yacht was even considered. The effort ultimately stalled, largely because the Olympics require certainty, and ice does not cooperate on a fixed schedule. Here’s an article about the situation with more detail in the DN Newsletter Runner Tracks: LINK
This season demonstrated that when conditions arrive in highly visible places, the story of the sport travels farther.
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by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 27, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page
Unseasonably warm weather across southern Wisconsin has taken a toll on the ice. Many lakes, including Lake Mendota, are now candled with shoreline loss and unsafe for racing. (Some of our members have had firsthand experience with candling on Mendota recently.) As a result, there will be no 4LIYC ice sailing on February 28 or March 1.
Candling occurs when solid ice breaks down into vertical columns and loses strength, even if the surface still appears intact. Learn more about candled ice here: LINK
In the meantime, here is an ice sailing sighting from an unexpected place.
This video captures the Range Rover campaign featuring Daniel Hearn’s C Skeeter running inside the Oculus at the World Trade Center in New York City. The Oculus serves as the main transportation hub for Lower Manhattan, with thousands of commuters passing through each day.
LINK TO VIDEO
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by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 22, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page, ISA
Via Pat Heppert from Lake Pepin’s Pickle Factory on the 4LIYC Facebook page:
“If it’s less than 75 sq. ft. and less than a 28-foot mast, they’re all Skeeters.”
Parked next to his C Skeeter DRIFTER, this little blue homemade (aren’t they all? – Ed.) iceboat looks like the kid brother tagging along. With enough wind, who knows.
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by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 15, 2026 | 2025-2026, DN, Home Page
Both commercials have already made the rounds in the ice sailing world. The Range Rover spot filmed in Minnesota last March with Daniel Hearn at the helm. The Škoda commercial shot in Finland in May with Lukas Zakrzewski driving.
This was simply a good excuse to get the two of them in one photo at registration for the 2026 DN World Championship in Sweden.
Iceboats in Advertising Archives
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by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 15, 2026 | 2025-2026, 2026 Northwest, Home Page, NIYA, Regattas, Renegade, WSSA
Green Lake, WI. Photo Jim Stevenson
The wind did not cooperate or obey the computer wind models this weekend (February 13 – 15.) Nobody got chilly, but the DNs and A skeeters got only two races in, and the Renegades, Stern Steerers and B/C Skeeters only got one. The races sailed are discarded, and we start from scratch starting Friday February 27th.
The locations possible range from somewhere on Green Bay, through Madison and out to Lake Pepin.
Steve Schalk
Secretary/Treasurer
Northwestern Ice Yachting Association
Gallery From Jim Stevenson
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by Deb Whitehorse | Feb 9, 2026 | 2025-2026, Home Page, WSSA
Photo: Brian Donahue for Red Bank Green
ice sailors never forget! Talk about patience, this is next level. Congratulations to the Hudson River crew on winning back the Van Nostrand Cup after 135 years and for keeping this remarkable piece of ice sailing history alive. And thank you to Red Bank Green, the independent local news outlet, for giving this regatta practically play by play and for their continuing coverage of ice sailing at Red Banks.
As the boat built by 19th-century architect Archibald Rogers came to a stop after their second straight win in the best of three, skipper Luke Lawrence and sheet tender Max Lopez exchanged hugs and gloved high fives with friends and family. One of several drones filming the action crashed into the sail and fell to the ice.
Then, Lawrence paused for a quiet emotional moment, kneeling silently in the basket amid the hoots and hubbub.
“I did this one for pop pop,” he said a few moments later, referring to his grandfather, Bob Lawrence, a boat builder and sailor. “He won a lot of stuff, but never this one. So this one is for him. Read more
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