Ice sailors build community through boats

Jerry Ebert has been waiting for Madison’s lakes to freeze since June, wistfully scanning far horizons in search of a time when the ice boats cometh.

“During the off season — summer — I sail with the Mendota Yacht Club. But that’s just something to do until the lake freezes again,” he confesses.

Ebert has been cruising the Madison-area lakes since he was a freshman living in Kronshage Hall. He did not begin with an actual boat.

“I tied a bed sheet to my hockey skates and held up the two corners with my hands,” he says. “After that, I tried all sorts of contraptions, from skate sails to ice boards. I would beg for real iceboat rides and borrow friends’ boats until I had enough money to buy my own” — a Detroit News (DN) he got used in 1999 and still owns.

“You lay in it like a coffin and skim inches off the ice at up to 60 miles per hour,” Ebert says. “No brakes. It can be like merging onto the Beltline during rush hour, without brakes. But nobody has brakes, so it isn’t a problem. You actually slow down and stop by turning your boat into the wind.”

Ebert is a self-described speed junkie. He’s also a doctor, a clinical assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation in the School of Medicine and Public Health.

“I mostly see patients with back pain or other musculoskeletal complaints. And I teach and occasionally cover call on the inpatient rehab unit at UW Hospital, where I care for patients with strokes, brain injuries and spinal cord injuries.

“My pager and cell phone do work out in the middle of the lake!” he says.

There was a time, at the turn of the 20th century, when iceboating was the absolute bar-none fastest way to travel anywhere. Don Sanford, coordinator of volunteers at WHA Television, currently is researching a book on Lake Mendota history. He’s also an iceboater. He says that the sport has a lengthy and rich history on campus.

“I just found an article from The Capital Times from January 1928. As part of Madison Winter Carnival, the university sponsored an iceboat race. The UW president was on hand to drop the flag,” Sanford says.

Sanford, too, has some yarns about the ice, specifically its use as a commuter alternative.

“I sailed to work once. I kept my boat in front of a friend’s house, sailed to the union and walked down Park Street to Vilas Hall with the sail over my shoulder,” he says.

The fellowship of iceboaters on campus is broad, and its community spans many academic disciplines. Right now, about eight UW–Madison faculty and staff are active in iceboating through Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club (4LIYC).

Iceboaters can ply their craft a scant two months a year, and Ebert says that global warming already has cut noticeable inroads into that brief window of opportunity.

Donald Ermer is Proctor and Gamble Emeritus Professor in Total Quality in the departments of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. He’s also been an avid iceboater since 1975, racing for 25 of those 30 years:

“The speed of the boats and the beauty of the ice at sunset is fantastic,” he says.

Ermer also gives iceboating at least part of the credit for focusing his classroom skills. “Iceboat sailing has helped me concentrate my academic responsibilities, and has enhanced my creativity and innovation for research and teaching,” he says.

However, he adds that there has been a pronounced deterioration of conditions for the sport in the last few years.

“We used to sail on the ice for almost four months, when the ice was at least 5 feet thick. Now we’re down to the two because the lakes freeze later and thaw earlier. The ice only gets to about 1 foot thick,” he says.

That reminds Ebert of a story.

“I took this woman I was dating out on Lake Kegonsa one Christmas Eve,” he says. “I was teaching her how to check the ice to make sure it’s safe. You do that by walking or skating on it, or drilling or chopping. The ice was smooth as glass that night. She wasn’t following me closely enough because suddenly I heard a scream and a splash, and in she went. She bobbed right up, and, with very little assistance, pulled herself out with her ice picks. It couldn’t have been too bad an experience, because she married me a couple years later and now races her own DN!

“To be an iceboater you have to like speed and come dressed for an unbelievable wind chill. If you try it, prepare to become hooked and to spend some money. As one famous iceboater put it, ‘It’s like tearing up $20 bills in the freezer.’

“But no iceboater would ever say it isn’t worth it.”

To get your feet wet in the sport or to look for upcoming events, Ebert and Ermer suggest you visit 4LIYC at http://www.iceboat.org.