Champion land sailor displays boat at Lakeside show
<p>The prototype mini-landsailer built by John Eisenlohr.</p>
World championship land sailor John Eisenlohr will be at the 10th annual Big Sky Antique & Classic Boat Show in Lakside this weekend to showcase his latest design, the Mini Skeeter Iceboat.
“It’s small, simple and performs well,” Eisenlohr said.
The plan is available for sale and he has already sold to this design to customers as far away as Sweden.
Alan Warton of Ireland, president of the International Land and Sandyachting Federation and North American Land Sailing Association, called Eisenlohr a “wild card” at the 2010 world championships in Belgium. Competitors were keeping a close watch on him, and with good reason.
Four years later, at the next world championships in Austin, Nevada, Eisenlohr won the top title in a relatively new class, the International 5.6 Mini, with his original design beating the previous world champion from Germany.
Eisenlohr said the rules for that category are very loose. Sailors must use a mast that is a round cross-section (a cloth sail). Tires may not be larger than 16 inches in diameter. And the triangle of the three boat tires must fit within a circle that is 5.6 meters long. Such simple rules allow for innovation.
Up to this point, Eisenlohr had only built larger boats. He “took the technology [from those larger designs] and implemented it into a smaller boat,” he said, He also focused on the aerodynamics of the vehicle.
His skeeter was the only one to have a fully enclosed fuselage at the world championships. That made the difference during competition over those three days where the light winds were spotty at best.
Boat show hours are Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The annual wooden boat parade gets underway Sunday at 3 p.m. All events and admission are free. For more information, contact Alex Berry. Call 406-471-2293 or email alex.b@montanawoodenboatfoundation.org.