UPCOMING:
4LIYC Meeting : November 19, 2025 @ Fast Champions Iceboat Shop More information.
4LIYC Shipstore: Order custom iceboat shirts, hats, and gear. More information.
BURGEE: Order your 4LIYC Burgee
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Join the 4LIYC
Thank you for joining or considering it. Your membership helps to support our ATV and safety equipment and this website.
There was a decent turn out for the first 4LIYC meeting of the season at our newest place, Breakwater, considering the challenging weather that night. The highlight of the evening for me was when Commodore Don Anderson spoke about our club members who have passed on -Steve Arnold, Jack Ripp, and Peter Lundt.
These membership cards honoring Jack Ripp have been ordered and Treasurer Jerry Simon will either hand them to you at the next meeting or mail them to you. Ice is here! Wingra may be worth a look in the coming days. As always with any ice, be safe out there and remember that ice is never safe!
Review ice safety procedures here.
The Race Is On
Winter is here in the Four Lakes area; we seem to have skipped November and gone right into December. Ken Whitehorse is working hard prepping his Class A Skeeter plank for red paint. Paul Krueger and Ken will be ready for ice – which might come early this year. It was 8F here this morning and with more single digit temps in the forecast – it’s making ice somewhere!
Spaight St. Syndicate: What’s In a Name
Uplifting art
Previously at the Spaight St. Syndicate
Daniel Hearn is inspired to name his C Skeeter by, well, read on…..
What’s In a Name
“What, are you thirteen,” she said rolling her eyes? I had to take a quick mental inventory. Let’s see—I still think there’s nothing funnier than a fart in church. I have many names for my male member, and each includes an adjective found on the Thesaurus page for huge. I burp out loud when I think no one else is around. I sometimes forget to put the toilet seat back down. I think Hershey’s is good chocolate. Even though I know I’m not supposed to, I often cut all the food on my plate at one time, because it’s so much more efficient. “Yeah, pretty much,” I replied. “So, what you’re saying is that C-Man is not an appropriate name for a C-Skeeter driven by a man my age who has four children—three of them daughters?” She just walked away, so I took that as an affirmative. Maybe I can still cancel the decal order.
Probably needs to be more sophisticated to win the approval of my Mrs. I hadn’t recalled asking for her approval, but nonetheless, it became clear that she thought she had a vote. I had carved up the districts within our household trying to prevent that, but clearly my gerrymandering was ineffective.
Maybe something from literature? The classics? Or how about mythology? Those Greeks were so sophisticated they convinced people to see pornography as art. I think the sculptors were just as juvenile as me. Their wives were certainly rolling their eyes when the Mr. was out back in the shed chiseling the fine form of a woman with a righteous amount of junk in the trunk.
There must be a cool-sounding “C” name in mythology, with deep meaning, that would be a fitting reflection of my masterpiece. (Well, it may not be a masterpiece, but it’s the best this paint-by-numbers kind of guy can do). That’s it—Callipygian! I think it’s perfect. And I’ll score points with the Mrs. when I tell her that I named the boat after her. But this time, I’m not disclosing the name until the fat bottomed girl hits the ice.
Now that you’ve Googled my name, let me know what you think. Will I be sleeping on the couch again, or will she be flattered by her juvenile husband of 32 years?
Official team gear available here: Righteous Junk
Bob Reeves: Sail On
A remembrance of a good man who brought many into the sport and a request from Mike Acebo of the Long Island, NY ice sailing community:
One of the most important members of the Long Island, NY iceboating community has sailed on. Bob Reeves, Orient NY, past Commodore of the Orient Ice Yacht Club has left us. His presence at every Long Island ice boating event, and beyond, served to coalesce our community and add to the membership of every club he was involved with. He was an avid Stern Steerer historian, builder and sailor with the history of several generations of iceboaters in his family. Through his plumbing supply business in Greenport he sold Skimmer 45’s to numerous locals to initiate them into the sport on local Hallock Bay, tiny Swan Pond and Lake Ronkonkoma. Many of these Skimmer sailors moved on to DN’s, C Skeeters, Stern Steers and the earliest 9 boat fleet of J14’s, an Orient club boat building project spearheaded by Bob. He was safety conscious, shared good ice reports and often spent his iceboating days helping others set-up, adjust rigging and advising novices how to improve their sailing while his J14 #20 stood by waiting. He travelled to ice and taught us there was always ice somewhere. Bob has moved on in the search of perfect ice. We will remember Bob in our own search for that perfect ice and great day with fellow iceboaters.
If anyone would like to share their stories of Bob please send them my way for our Club history archives.
Thank you,
Mike Acebo
macebo@mac.com
LRIBYC Newsletter editor
Iceboat Swap Meet Mega Weekend- Nov 2-3
Looking to attend an iceboat swap meet? We’ve got you covered across iceboating country, from east to west. If you are new to the sport or a seasoned veteran, swap meets are the perfect place to kick the tires, shop for parts, and meet ice sailors. Have a boat or parts to sell? Take them to your local swap meet.
EAST:
New England Ice Yacht Club
Saturday November 2, 2019
10 AM with lunch at noon
Hudson-Concord Elks Hall
99 Park Street, Hudson, MA 01749
More information.
CENTRAL:
West Michigan Swap Meet at the Muskegon Yacht Club
Saturday, November 2, 2019
9 AM – 1 PM
3198 Edgewater St, Muskegon, MI 49441
WEST
Skeeter Iceboat Club Swap Meet
Sunday, November 3, 2019
9 AM to Noon
Lucke’s Cantina
220 N. Elkhorn Rd. (WI Hwy 67), Williams Bay, WI.
More information
FAR WEST
Minnesota Ice Sailors Swap Meet
Saturday, November 2, 2019
9 AM – Noon
Sailcrafters
7450 Oxford St., St. Louis Park, MN 55426
More information
Montana FIRST!
Via John Cassidy and the Montana Icebuds Facebook page, looks like we have first runners on the ice in North America and quite possibly the world. This DN sailed on Ray Creek on Friday, November 1, 2019. Ray Creek is part of the famous Canyon Ferry watershed.
Can You See Me Now?
Jeff Russell and Jerry Simon.
Something good can often come out of something bad. Recall at the end of last season, the 4LIYC racing marks went missing. Mark Master Jerry Simon made a set of new and improved marks. These new marks are much bigger than the old set and should be easier to pick out on the course.
Jerry writes:
Jeff Russell and I spent the morning fabricating some new ice boat marks. The evolution is evident with the oldest in the back and newest in front. Bigger and brighter is better I hope.
That Time When A Car Raced Iceboats On Lake Monona
A Warren-Detroit automobile and Carl Bernard’s YELLOW KID stern-steerer. YELLOW KID was one of the 10 stern-steerers on the racing program for that day.
Th
e Four Lakes area received another 5″ of snow yesterday making October 2019 the snowiest on record at 8.1 inches. I researched the previous years with snowy Octobers with the hope of finding a correlation between October snow and early ice sailing. There wasn’t enough data, but during the search, I stumbled across this 1916 newspaper article about a race between a “6 cylinder Warren Detroit auto” owned by Walter Haspell and 10 Madison stern-steerers on Lake Monona. The article notes that Mr. Haspell, an avid ice sailor himself, had previously “pitted his automobile…against the ice yachts but the found the course too slippery”. No word whether the race was run or who won. Click on the newspaper clipping to enlarge it.
Of course you can’t have a post about automobiles vs. iceboats without this classic film from Lake St. Clair, posted below.
Remembering Randy Johnson DN US4000
Condolences to the family and friends of Gull Lake Ice Yacht Club, Michigan sailor Randy Johnson who recently passed on. His passion for ice sailing made for an extraordinary and beautiful funeral where his DN set up was set up in remembrance.
Are You READY for Ice?
The reason to ask is because the Four Lakes area and beyond woke up to an early winter this morning with more snow to come this week. The 4LIYC Skeeter fleet is on the trailer ready for ice. Ken Whitehorse applied the graphics to his newly painted WARRIOR just in time!
View out the iceboat.org window this morning.
Online Ship’s Store
National Iceboat Authority Web Page
4LIYC Governing Documents
Click for 4LIYC Meeting Dates
- January 2 THURSDAY Honor Roll Nominations
- January 15 Deadline for By-Law or Racing Rules Amendment Submission
- January 29
- February 12 Business Meeting
- February 26
- March 12 Last Meeting of the Season
Location: In person at the Elks Lodge 711 Jenifer St, Madison, WI 53703
Time: 6:30 PM
YOU ARE SKIPPER NUMBER
TO ROUND THE MARK SINCE NOVEMBER 1999.
