WINTER

WINTER SPORTS

FOR THE

From lightning-fast ice boating to windaided surfing, the outdoors offers cold-weather pleasures

PAGE 6A

Rick Barrett

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel USA TODAY NETWORK – WISCONSIN

WILL TRAVEL

Iceboats carve their niche in a fast sport with no brakes

On Lake Noquebay in Marinette County, the Ace of Spades, Miss Jane II, Rosemary, and other iceboats gather for a regatta on ice where the wind has cleared much of the snow. ● Some of the boats are capable of speeds topping 80 miles per hour. The oldest boat, Spindler, has just turned 100 years old.

● Some of the biggest iceboats are nearly as long as a city bus, while others are more like an oversized coffin in which the sailor lies on their back, head slightly raised to see what’s ahead and steer.

x A man readies his iceboat before a Wisconsin Stern Steerers Association regatta on Jan. 4 on Lake Noquebay in Crivitz. An iceboat can reach at least four times the speed of the wind propelling it.

PHOTOS BY MARK HOFFMAN/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

y The crew of a two-person iceboat struggles to keep their craft from blowing away before making it to the starting line at the Jan. 4 regatta on Lake Noquebay.

can do in it,” Gratton said.

Like many others, he also enjoys tinkering with the old boats steeped in the sport’s history, much of it in Wisconsin.

Iceboats were once the world’s fastest vehicles

Some of the first iceboats were designed in the 1800s to carry supplies and building materials across lakes and down frozen rivers. For the sailors’ amusement, they raced trains along New York’s Hudson River.

“The iceboats usually beat the trains; for a time, they were the fastest vehicles on the planet, capable of reaching speeds of 75 mph or greater, and occasionally exceeding 100 mph,” according to Hudson Valley Viewfinder Magazine. “The racing iceboats owned by the wealthy were full-on yachts. Along with being huge — John Roosevelt’s Icycle spanned 70 feet, hoisted 1,000 feet of sail, and had to be moved on a railroad flatcar — they featured carved figureheads, a variety of woods, even gold leaf,” the magazine said.

An 1878 article in Harper’s Weekly had an engraving of iceboating in Madison.

An iceboat was used to haul stone to rebuild the state Capitol after the previous building was destroyed in a fire in 1904. The boats were also used to carry materials for the construction of a psychiatric hospital which opened in 1860 on the shore of Lake Mendota.

Iceboating flourished in Madison, partly because of the city’s lakes and a culture that embraced wintertime activities.

One boat design became known as the Madison Style of iceboats. Other Wisconsin cities, such as Lake Geneva and Oshkosh, also developed their own designs, said Deb Whitehorse, an author at the website Iceboat.org.

The last of the Madison Style boats, built in 1927, can still be seen on Lake Monona where it’s been kept in period condition and is now owned by the Iceboat Foundation.

Big boats dominated Madison’s frozen lakes until the late 1940s when the smaller Skeeter Class took over. Skeeters were easily transported to the ice on a trailer or even a car rooftop, unlike some boats that were so long they were moved by railcar.

Madison’s coal-burning power plant contributed to the sailing conditions on Lake Monona.

“When other lakes would have too much snow for iceboating, the soot from coal burned at the power plant, coupled with prevailing winds, kept Lake Monona’s ice snow-free. But the coal cinders were not good for iceboat runners,” Whitehorse said.

She grew up on the lake where her father raced boats and built them in the family’s basement. As an author and race official, she’s been to Sweden, Poland, Estonia, and Russia’s Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world.

In racing, time on the ice is sometimes limited by wind that’s not strong enough or is too much. If the conditions don’t improve, racers sometimes head to a local supper club and call it a day.

Some them have known each other for decades.

“There’s an old saying that iceboating is 90 percent social, 8 percent building the boats, and 2 percent sailing,” Whitehorse said.

The next generation of iceboaters

One problem in iceboating is that not enough young people are stepping up to take the place of participants who are aging out of the sport.

Sam Bartel, a University of Wisconsin- Madison graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Chinese studies, aims to help change that. He’s now director of racing and operations at the Lake Minnetonka Sailing School in suburban Minneapolis.

The first time that Bartel climbed aboard an iceboat was in 2021 when he was a sophomore at UW-Madison. The wind was blowing up to around 25 mph and iceboats can travel three times the speed of the wind. “To be honest, I was pretty nervous,” Bartel said.

“And I was even more scared once we started going. It was super loud, the ear piercing whistle of the wind, the piercing chill of the cold air … the runners going across the ice at 60, 70, 80 miles per hour,” he recalled.

Dave Elsmo, the head sailing coach at UW-Madison, helped him get started in racing.

“He offered to get me a boat and let me try out a few events. From then on, I was hooked,” Bartel said.

At the sailing school, Bartel has recruited youths from the “soft water” sailing program, and for the winter, turned them into iceboaters. Most of his students come from a traditional sailing background.

Iceboating is safe for kids as long as safety precautions are followed, according to Bartel. Small lakes and even large ponds are suitable but should always be sailed under the close supervision of adults.

The boats have steel runners which look like oversized ice skates. And while iceboats don’t have brakes, the sailors slow down by turning upwind and letting the sail out.

They glide across Lake Noquebay with the poise of seagulls soaring overhead. Yet up close, it’s loud as the runners dig into the ice and the wind whips through the sails.

Coming around a marker on the race course, one of the boats lifts a runner into the air, like an airplane making a banked turn. The boat’s other two runners remain planted on the ice as it gains speed and heads downwind.

If a boat is turned too quickly, the back end can whip around to the front, which is called a “spin.”

“That’s exciting, but it’s not necessarily what you want to do,” said iceboater Andy Gratton from Oshkosh.

The racers give a wide berth to folks ice fishing on the 2,400 acre lake. “We don’t want to get them excited and concerned that we’re getting too close,” Gratton said.

They’re mindful of cracks and thin spots in the ice, which is never entirely safe because of moving water underneath. And a tolerance for cold, worsened by the wind, helps participants in this sport.

“I don’t like the cold, but I like what I