UPCOMING:
It’s Building Season!
4LIYC Meeting : November 2025
4LIYC Shipstore: Order custom iceboat shirts, hats, and gear. More information.
BURGEE: Order your 4LIYC Burgee
Pay Your Dues Online
The Forecast Is Ice Making
Finally, the weather forecasters declare that Old Man Winter is scheduled to appear next week and turn on Wisconsin’s ice-making machine. Lakes Kegonsa and Monona have skimmed over a few times and should be frozen next week.
Accuweather Forecast
Weather Underground Forecast
Christmas Eve Reflections
Erin Bury took advantage of glass ice in this unusual video perspective. On Christmas eve, she and Alex Peterson sailed DNs on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. Watch closely!
Iceboating in the Olympics
John Buckstaff Archives
Ice sailing as an Olympic event has been a hot topic in the DN class for years. (See Runner Tracks, September 2017 for that story.) Iceboat sail maker and historian, Henry Bossett, has come across an extraordinary 1933 Oshkosh, WI newspaper article about John Buckstaff receiving an invitation from the German Yachting Union to compete at the 1936 Olympics. I can find no mention in further news reports as to what transpired. For now, here’s the article that ran in the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. Click on the newspaper column image to enlarge it.
Tip of the Helmet: Henry!
In The News: “Cool Running” from Lakeland Boating Magazine
Lakeland Boating Magaine
BY HEATHER STEINBERGER
Got a need for speed this winter? Just hoist the sails.
In my career as a boating journalist, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few serious adventurers who actively seek hard water when the temperatures go down and the wind pipes up. Winter weather has most Great Lakes residents curled up in their cozy homes, dreaming of warm summer afternoons, yet these folks are hurtling toward any inland lake that offers smooth, stable, snow-free ice.They are iceboaters, and their sport isn’t for the faint of heart. Continue reading.
An Interlude of Ice While We Wait
Hollywood Ice is Hollywood Ice in any language. Take a moment and enjoy this video from Serge Billet’s Facebook page. “Dream ice on December 18, 2021 in Bouverans”. Serge lives in the Comté region of eastern France.
Picture of the Week

Through the Harken Looking Glass…
Polish DN sailor Tomasz Zakrzewski P55 shot this clever photo at the Swedish DN Championship which was held over the weekend (December 18-19, 2021) on Lake Ymsen. Tomek placed 4th in a very competitive field. Results here.
Paint Your Skeeter Trailer
Bob Kau visits the Past Champions Skeeter Shop.
What do you do when your runners are sharpened, your Skeeters are ready for ice, and the temperature is a balmy 70F in the middle of December? The guys next door to iceboat.org HQ, Ken Whitehorse and Paul Krueger of the Past Champions Iceboat Shop, made good use of the day and painted their trailer. However, today’s falling temperatures moved the project back inside for wheel-bearing packing, almost as important as sharp runners.
HELLSBELLS
Welcome HELLSBELLS, Mark Isabell’s new Class A Skeeter build which he just painted. Mark named it after his father’s boat. I look forward to energetically saying HELLSBELLS every time Mark round the leeward mark when scoring.
Semi-Secret Shop News

Levitating Renegade mast.
In Renegade news, paint cans have been seen accumulating at the Ron Rosten shop, and word has it that Greg McCormick’s Renegade will be sporting a fresh paint job this season.
“Madison or Minnesota?”
Madison or Minnesota? Minnesota C Skeeter sailor Pat Heppert posted the photo and question on Facebook over the weekend. Unfortunately, the Madison area must live vicariously through our Minnesota friends for some time. This Wednesday’s forecast of 64F will not help with ice making in southern Wisconsin, but it’s all downhill temperature-wise from then.
The former Jerry Simon boat SIMONIZED IV belongs to Mike Maloney. Pat and Mike sailed on some beautiful ice north of Brainerd, MN, on Round Lake while the MN DN crowd crossed the highway to sail on 4″ of black ice at Gull Lake.