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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1955 ISA regatta sailed on Lake Monona in Madison, WI.
Both the International Skeeter Association and Renegade Championship Regattas have been postponed.
Ice checkers found 25″ of hard black ice at Little Bay de Noc at Gladstone, Michigan but with too much shell ice for safe sailing. Next update will be Sunday, April 1, 2018. [Never thought I’d be typing that date about an iceboat regatta!-ed.]
In the meantime, let’s revisit the 1955 ISA championship won by Buddy Melges in MICKEY FINN. Jane Wiswell (before she married Bob Pegel) won the women’s division. There’s some good detail in this article if you are a fan of the sport.
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.
The rain stayed away for the Skeeter Iceboat Club’s annual swap meet. The swap meet always provides the perfect venue to catch up with old friends and meet new people who are interested in ice sailing. We hope to see all of you out on the ice this season! Thank you Jane and Suzie Pegel for organizing the swap meet and handling the traditional raffle.
Skeeter Iceboat Club’s Jane Pegel is reviewing her scrapbooks in an effort to help fill in some history for the DN North American Championships. She’s sharing notes from other regattas and I’ve picked out the 1968 Gar Wood for today’s Throw Back Thursday.
Garfield Wood grew up in the Midwest, was an inventor invented the hydraulic lift, owned the company that was to become Chris Craft for a time, and raced and built wooden motor boats that broke speed records. This guy’s accomplishments were amazing (read them here and here). Gar Wood was interested in speed so it’s was only natural that he sponsored a prestigious iceboat regatta in Detroit, the Gar Wood. The Gar Wood hasn’t been sailed for in many years.
There are no photos from this regatta in my files but I have included the program from the 1958 Gar Wood, a 1968 newspaper clipping from the Wisconsin State Journal with Jane pushing Susie in her DN on a light air day, and two pages from Lynn Mattison Raley’s book she made for her dad, Bill Mattison that focus on 1968, which is the year he won the Skeeter class at the Gar Wood.
Feb 24-25. 1968. Gar Wood regatta on Anchor Bay. 65 boats total in Classes E, Renegade, Arrow and DN
The Scripps Trophy for the DN class was won by Jane Pegel, with Stan Woodruff second and Roy Holden third. DN juniors were led by Dan Kuemmerlein (Pewaukee), Mike Harvey second, Tim Woodhouse third. Bill Mattison had won the ISA the previous week and a win at the Gar Wood earned him the Triple Crown (The Northwest was not sailed.) Elmer Millenbach won the York Trophy for Renegades. Mike Hendrie won in the Arrows. Source: Jane Pegel
