Super Models

Bill Mattison’s HONEYBUCKET Class A Skeeter created by Kyle Metzloff

Previous: Model B
As our summer starts winding down, it’s time to start thinking more about the upcoming season. To help get you in the mood, take a look at some more iceboat models including a special one from the modern era, Bill Mattison’s HONEYBUCKET Class A Skeeter which was created by 4LIYC DNer and noted modeler Kyle Metzloff. Stern-steerer/Nite class sailor Mike Peters shares his collection along with some photos of other models he received from a friend.

Steve Arnold Photo Collection: Vintage ’80s

From left: Elmer Millenbach, Steve Arnold, Harvey Witte, Paul Krueger, Ken Whitehorse

It’s time for iceboat.org’s summer vacation series where we take a look back in our sport through old photos. Barb Arnold donated some of late husband Steve’s photos and scrapbooks dating from the late 1970s and 80s to the 4LIYC. Watch for more of these in the coming weeks and if the pictures remind you of any good stories, let me know!

 

HONEYBUCKET Evolution

Steve Orelebeke sails in HONEYBUCKET XIV, the last Skeeter built by Bill Mattison. Steve has won several major regattas sailing HONEYBUCKET XIV.

The Korean War introduced you to the real ‘Honey Bucket Wagons’. You always said, ‘You can never come out spelling like a rose.'”
Lynn Mattison Raley about her father, Bill Mattison.

When Jerry Simon and I were looking through the Krogman scrapbook photos, the subject of Bill Mattison’s Renegades and Skeeters came up. I’ve always wondered if Bill ever had an iceboat with plain old HONEYBUCKET on the side, without a Roman numeral next to the name. (As far as I can ascertain, there has never been a HONEYBUCKET. Jerry Simon agreed that Bill went from SNAPSHOT to HONEYBUCKET II.)
Bill’s daughter, Lynn Mattison Raley, explains the lineage best in a wonderful book she put together about her dad.

“Bill was now really hooked on iceboats and started building his first one-design iceboat, a Renegade. Unfortunately, during the winter of 1949, a fire swept through his family’s home. Damage was confined to the basement, destroying Bill’s new iceboat. Undaunted, he built another. Two years later, SNAPSHOT, named in honor of the family business, Star Photo Service, was on the ice ready for her first race. That boat also met with an unfortunate end. While waiting for his first race to begin, the [stern-steerer] FRITZ came around the leeward mark of the racecourse, spinning out of control right into Bill’s new boat, turning the beautiful SNAPSHOT into a pile of firewood. Then came the Korean War and service with the army. Iceboating would have to wait for Uncle Sam.

After the war, Bill finished his third Renegade. SNAPSHOT’S first race was on Lake Monona. “We had 60 boats on the starting line and I finished that regatta in the top 10,” Bill said. Speed, they say, is a narcotic. You can never get enough. So it was with Bill and iceboats. In 1954, he build his first class E Skeeter, HONEYBUCKET. The rest, as they say, is history. His boats set the standard for the evolution of the Skeeter class. He continually refined and improved his designs, eventually producing 14 HONEYBUCKETS before he retired from the sport in 2008.”