Nite Nationals has been Tentatively Called ON for Jan.16-18, 2026
Our forecast shows promise therefore the Nite Board has decided to tentatively call on the 2026 Nite National Championship for Lake Kegonsa, Stoughton, WI
Your Nite Board will give you further updates after 3:30 on Wednesday January 14, 2026. Make sure your membership is up-to-date and that you have properly signed the required waiver form.
If officially called on we will then determine if it will be a 2 day or 3 day regatta.
The ISA have also been tentatively called for Lake Kegonsa, if they are officially called on, the ISA regatta has precedence over Nite Nationals.
We are continually watching the weather patterns and we will make the call by early Wednesday evening and at that time we will provide further launch, hotel and regatta details.
Continue to monitor Facebook Group, the Nite Website, and your email for further communication.
We are always open to you sharing the conditions of your local lake or of a lake you have pertinent info on.
Keep your runners sharp and your boats tuned. The ride of your life awaits.
Sail Safe, Sail Fast,
Maureen Bohleber Commodore #497
Dave Navin Vice Commodore #549
Chris Wiberg Treasurer #434
John Heigis Secretary #160
Mike Peters Tech Committee #544
The Wisconsin Stern Steering Association regatta has been postponed to January 24 and 25, 2026. The next update will be Sunday, January 18. Check back here at that time. The Northwest Ice Yacht Association regatta takes precedence.
The 2026 International Skeeter Association Regatta is tentatively called on for Lake Kegonsa for Friday January 16th, but only if the Northwestern Regatta at Fond Du Lac is postponed on Wednesday the 14th.
The final call on Wednesday for the NIYA is being held at 11 am and the ISA at 11:30 am, so by noon Wednesday the 14th, the call will be made as to which Regatta is on and where.
The NIYA Regatta is on for Fond Du Lac starting Friday January 16th. The final call will be made by noon on Wednesday the 14th after a check of ice and weather forecasts. Next update, Wednesday, January 14 by noon.
Iceboating is a bit like Goldilocks; we need conditions to be just right. Right now, we have too many ice holes.
Last weekend, snow on Lake Kegonsa kept us off the ice. This week’s rain and warm temperatures cleared much of that snow, but the same weather also created too many drain holes for safe sailing. Saturday’s forecast includes some snow, followed by colder temperatures. A few club members plan to check the lake again early Sunday morning to assess conditions and determine whether scrub racing is possible. Next update for 4LIYC racing is January 16.
Here’s the ice report straight from Damien:
The Zamboni has done a good job on Kegonsa snow cover. If not for iced drifts 1-1.5” tall, the surface would be an 8-9, but the inclusions bring that down to a roughish ride likely so 5-6. The landing is still good. The main issue is the holes! Any ice fishing hole from the last 2 weeks is open and growing. There are series of them that would eat a whole iceboat runner.
While we wait for Mother Nature’s super Zamboni to finish its work, with rain turning to snow over the next couple of days, there is time to look backward. A dive into the Daily Cardinal archives turned up an unexpected addition to Madison’s iceboating story.
The recent post about the UW student film Not Responsible led me into the University of Wisconsin newspaper The Daily Cardinal archives. While looking for references tied to the film, I started poking around more broadly to see what the paper had written about iceboating.
Iceboating appears in the Daily Cardinal from the late nineteenth century onward, and by the 1920s it was treated as routine winter life on campus. Boats were raced, rented, and rarely explained to readers. The paper assumed its audience already understood what iceboats were and how they fit into life on Lake Mendota.
One of the things I found along the way was a small but important addition to the Charles Lindbergh story in Madison.
For years, Lindbergh’s connection to iceboating here has been told through a story that centers on the motorized ice craft he helped build on Lake Mendota in 1921, powered by a motorcycle engine geared to an airplane propeller. That account is well documented, and it still stands.
What the Daily Cardinal archive adds is one more fact. In a 1929 article reflecting on Lindbergh’s Wisconsin years, the paper notes, without emphasis, that he owned an iceboat while he was a student. Iceboating was part of ordinary winter life on Lake Mendota at the time.
Lindbergh’s motorized iceboat looks like an extension of something he already understood well, speed on ice.
Family context helps explain why. Lindbergh’s maternal grandmother was a Lodge from Detroit, and his cousin Joe Lodge (part of the trio who designed the DN) was an active iceboater there. Detroit, like Madison, was a center of iceboating and mechanical experimentation in the early twentieth century. Iceboats there were not just raced but modified, tuned, and pushed. Lindbergh arrived in Madison already comfortable with machines, ice, and speed.
A later source adds more to Lindbergh’s connection to iceboating. In Evolution of Modern Sailboat Design, Meade Gougeon notes that Lindbergh is said to have assisted his cousin Joe Lodge with the design of a highly advanced rig installed on the Class A stern steerer DEUCE II in the mid 1930s. The boat featured a rotating wing mast believed to be the first of its kind. Although DEUCE II suffered repeated rigging failures, the concept carried forward, and Lodge went on to win the Stuart Cup and Hearst International Trophy in 1938 with the rebuilt DEUCE III. The account suggests that Lindbergh’s interest in iceboating did not end in Madison, but extended into later experimentation at the highest level of the sport.
Daily Cardinal, February 22, 1929
Joe Lodge, holding an iceboat runner, with Fritz Jungbluth in Detroit, 1937. Lodge was a cousin of Charles Lindbergh. Photo from the Bernard scrapbook collection.
Motorized iceboat likely powered by a Ford Model T engine. This is a separate experiment from Lindbergh’s motorized ice craft.
