Bob and Jane took meticulous care of their iceboats. Bob’s Skeeter, FROZEN ASSETS, had different color schemes which is unusual in my opinion because up here at Four Lakes, the most of the Skeeters in that era were red and white, period. Jane writes about Bob’s boats:
Bob had many different boats. Each boat had a different paint scheme. I don’t recall the sequence or how many boats there were. He had conventional under the boom cockpits and also rumble seaters. Originally Bob’s number was I-117. The number 9 had been assigned to Cora Millenbach and she gave 9 to Bob and he then had I-9 on his Skeeters and then also on his Renegades. After he got tired of the color blue, he had green boats. Bob raced in A Division and also in C Division (which was a varnished boat with a white deck). He won C division ISA and also Class E in the Northwest. The brown skeeter with sail I-117 was actually the boat with white sides and dark blue deck. The hull broke in half and was rebuilt. It was rebuilt and back on the ice and rigged to sail before it could be repainted. I have a photo of that boat under sail hanging in my hallway. In that photo It it obvious the hull is getting ready to break.
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Jane Wiswell Pegel of the Skeeter Ice Boat Club with trophies.
Several months ago, an envelope arrived in the mail with 177 slides. I finally got around to converting them and am pleased to announce that iceboat.org’s off-season series will feature the Pegel family iceboating slides. I’ll try to post a few each week with commentary and context from Jane and Susie as their schedule permits.
I don’t have any information from them yet on these photos, but will update if it comes. Before she was a DN sailor, Jane sailed a Skeeter, CALAMITY JANE. In the above photo, Jane holds a plaque that appears to read “Women’s Skeeter Champion.” ISA regatta records indicate that Jane won the Women’s Championship in 1955, 1956, and 1957.
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The International Skeeter Association championship has been postponed. There are multiple lakes with club racing venues but ramps are all questionable at this time. Tune up and be set for a great championship!
PIKE an early Skeeter iceboat owned by the Goes Family
From the Skeeter Iceboat Club on Geneva Lake, Jane Pegel sends this photo with a note:
Here is a photo of Chris Goes sailing January 12, 2018, on Delavan Lake in the Beau Skeeter “Pike”. This boat has been owned and given loving care by the Goes family since 1935. With Harry Melges, Sr. at the helm, “Pike” won the Northwest in 1935, the first year that Class E Skeeters raced in the regatta as a separate fleet. This is what the boats looked like when the Beau Skeeter Ice Boat Club (now the Skeeter Ice Boat Club) was organized in 1933.
Jane’s information puts the Skeeters in the Northwest one year earlier than records had indicated, a date confirmed by this Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper article from 2-28-1935. That’s not the end of the story because it appears the Skeeters first sailed the Northwest in 1933 at Oshkosh but that regatta was cancelled for reasons likely related to weather. The Northwest regatta officials must have embraced the new Skeeter class the same year it was organized at Lake Geneva. Related: Northwest Regatta Winners
Wisconsin State Journal, Feb 23, 1933. The “mosquito class” is now known as the Skeeter class.
