Above: Bill Mattison’s shortlived first Renegade Class iceboat Snapshot was lost in a house fire in 1949 soon after this photo. He immediately built a second Snapshot, which shortly after completion was itself then mowed down and badly damaged by a much larger, out-of-control stern-steerer. After his service in the Korean War (left) Mattison returned to the Renegade Class with a third Snapshot, which proved more enduring and more successful in a competitive fleet that often turned out 60 boats for a weekend race. During the Korean War Mattison lost half of his close friends, most of whom simply disappeared on night reconnaissance and were then never seen or heard of again. Night recon was regarded as the most dangerous posting of the Korean theatre


things that broke – both for himself, and for all of his competitors. Which brings us to the Willy Street Boat Shop.


Lynn Mattison Raley wrote in the 2017 book she assembled from all the press clip- pings her mother had saved. ‘You always said, “You can never come out smelling like a rose.”’ In 1954 Bill built his first Skeeter. Con-


sidered the ‘Formula One’ of iceboats, these craft are capable of well over 100mph; the only design rule restricts the sail area to 75ft2


, and even that has


workarounds. ‘You can get up to 40 or 50mph on just spars alone,’ Bill explained in 1991, after labelling himself ‘the senior citizen’ of the Skeeter class. ‘Guys work their way up into this class. This is where you end, it isn’t where you


38 SEAHORSE


begin.’ Two years later he admitted to the Chicago Tribune that Skeeters ‘do have this tendency to want to go airborne’. Over the next four decades he would


build a string of Honeybuckets, each one setting a new benchmark in class develop- ment; many are still racing today. In 1958 a Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club news item announced ‘Flash! Bill Mattison is building a new boat. All Skeeter skippers have a wor- ried look in Madison.’ (He and Mauretta had married in 1957, and that same news - letter had also called out the arrival of Lynn – along with a tongue-in-cheek request for a pink DN, the smallest class of iceboat.) But Bill’s most legendary skill was fixing


No charge The Star Photo office was on Williamson Street in Madison, which Harken and others remember as a hippie area. In the early 1970s Bill set up a second shop nextdoor that he nicknamed the Willy Street Boat Shop, and it quickly became the place for iceboat building and repair. Anyone who broke boats or parts during


a weekend race was told ‘Just bring it over and we’ll see what we can do to get you back on the ice.’ A typical example from 1977: after a brand-new Renegade was liter- ally broken into two pieces during a Sunday on the ice, the owner delivered the splinters to Willy Street on Monday evening. Four nights later the boat was whole again – and out racing that Saturday. Bill also helped his good friend Peter Barrett earn a medal at the 1964 Olympics 


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