Pegel Slide Collection: Frank Trost & TUSCARORA

Frank Trost TUSCARORA III

Frank Trost, along with his neighbor William Perrigo, was another legendary E Skeeter sailor from Pewaukee, WI. Trost and Perrigo captured the 1953 Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant the first time the race was held in the Midwest after Fox Lake’s Eddie Rollberg won it out east in 1952. Trost was part of the winning team that went on to win it another 3 times.
Frank Trost gave one of my favorite descriptive quotes about ice boating to a Russian reporter in 1960:

From “Sailing In the Cold Region“, a Russian magazine article published in 1960:
Frank Trost, Perrigo’s neighbor, describes even poetical a ride on his “Tuscarora”:- Iceboat comes alive, he begins to talk to you. Was I somehow on Lake Delavan. Gusts crosswind reached 80 km / h. I didn’t feel under itself, but the “Tuscarora” didn’t obey. It seemed to fly through the air; only the wind howled in the wires and whistled – people standing on the bank told us that the boat roared like a jet plane – and in my helmet was a rumble that I have not heard the creaking of the runners. After the arrival, from flying in all directions icicles Trost’s face was covered with hundreds of tiny cuts. But the little things it did not disturb. As many iceboat sailors, he doesn’t recognize the face masks. He argues that in order to determine the speed of a good sailor should feel the wind on his face and trap slightest changes, skillfully using them to speed up the movement. It is worth and cause injury to the blood!

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More 1952 Northwest Regatta Photos

Harry Melges at the 1952 Northwest on Lake Monona.

A Surprise in the Mail: Part 3

Renegader Jerry Simon had a look through the scrapbook that I recently received and spent a few enjoyable hours identifying boats and putting the photos in context. We’ve concluded that the scrapbook did indeed belong to Herb Krogman who sailed Renegades and Skeeters with the Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club in the 1950s. There are quite a few pictures from the 1952 Northwest which was sailed on Lake Monona. History records that Bill “Curley” Perrigo won the Skeeter title that year in THUNDERJET. The 1950s were a time of rapid technological development in the Skeeter class and a transition from Skeeter to what would become the Renegade class.