The Mead Glider Company


This week, I received a package filled with iceboating memorabilia, which included what seemed to be magazine advertising proofs for Mead iceboats of Chicago, Illinois.

Since the beginning of this website in 1998, the Buy & Sell page has been filled with vintage Mead iceboats for sale, all of which came out of Ted Mead’s Chicago factory.

Who was Ted Mead? According to a 1937 newspaper article, his father owned bicycle factories in Chicago and England. His mother was noted for her exceptional woodworking skills. After graduating from Princeton in 1925, he built houses for a few years; he eventually grew tired of this profession and founded the Mead Glider Company. When the airplane business became unprofitable, Mead moved on to building kayaks, ice motor sleds, and iceboats, and the factory employed 24 people.

Below are links to some of the Mead iceboat memorabilia that’s come my way in the last 20+ years.

Learn More:
Ted Mead Biography Newspaper Article
Announcing Mead’s New Class E Skeeter Racer
Mead Batwing Iceboat Brochure
Mead Iceboat Brochure 3
Mead Iceboat Brochure 5
Mead Archives
Early ISA Video

 

Everything You Want to Know About Rear-Seat Skeeters


Bill Mattison wrote this article for Yacht Racing and Cruising magazine in 1981 in the heyday of the rear-seat Class A Skeeter, a few years before the dawn of the cockpit forward style. Hundreds of these rear-seaters are still out there. Print this article and keep it with the boat if you have one.
Tip of the Helmet: Mike O’Brien
Read the article.

The word “iceboater” should be listed as a synonym for “dedication.”
Bill Mattison

1 Ice Yacht Racing Way


From the vast files of ice sailing researcher Henry Bossett, here’s an idea from the 1800s that never caught on, a planned community centered around ice sports and refrigeration. George Newnes originally published the illustration in his British weekly magazine, Tit Bits, “Tit-Bits from all the interesting Books and Newspapers of the World.” Newnes was an “early father of popular journalism”, and Tit-Bits had a surprisingly long run from 1881 to 1984. (I enhanced the iceboat sails with color.)

Plucky Kids Beat Snobby Kids in 1922 Iceboat Race

SIRIUS at the 1913 Northwest Regatta at Menominee, Michigan. (See all the photos from that regatta here.)

One hundred years ago, a newspaper insert geared towards children, Golden Days For Boys and Girls, published this gem of a story in nationwide newspapers. The fictional action takes place around what appears to be the Lake Winnebago area. One of the boats in the story is named SIRIUS, and perhaps the boat with that same name from Lake Winnebago was the inspiration. Take a few minutes to read the story. (Click on the image to enlarge.) The author was not credited but the story would make a terrific movie.