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-Neenah-.Nodaway racht Club 
pered by Eb Stevens, won the race. But then, as now, most com- 
petitors came from the smaller lakes. 
  The pioneering yachtsmen who introduced the sport to Winne- 
bago formed the nucleus of an inland yachting fraternity which 
grew as clubs were organized on lakes to the south. In due time 
Cedar, Oconomowoc, Pewaukee, Geneva, and Delavan clubs sent 
their craft to the regatta which annually marked the climax of 
Winnebago's sailing season. Whole communities followed the 
fortunes of the various boats, and regatta time in Oshkosh became 
one prolonged holiday. Spectators and visiting yachtsmen crowded 
the city. Entertainment and merry-making filled the hours not de- 
voted to the races. Sailing became the leading sport of this fresh- 
water region, and it captured the interest and support of a sur- 
prisingly large segment of the population. 
  The formation of the Inland Lake Yachting Association in 1897 
brought racing craft to Winnebago from Minnetonka and White 
Bear lakes in Minnesota, approximately three hundred miles to 
the west. And this was before the days of the automobile and the 
trailer. In 1916 the Northwestern Regatta Association and the 
Inland joined forces, thus bringing into one organization all the 
clubs of this vast region. 
  No glance at yacht racing in this north country can fail to take 
notice of the racing scow. At the turn of the century yachtsmen 
and boat designers in the area realized that lake racing demanded 
a different type of yacht from those favored by clubs on the At- 
lantic seaboard. They began searching for something smaller, 
lighter, and less costly than the traditional yachts, a fast boat es- 
pecially adapted to racing on a lake. After some years of trial and 
error the present-day scow was evolved. In its design it abandoned 
the classic hull. The new boat was shovel-nosed, broad of beam, 
of shallow draft with a skimming-dish hull, and sloop-rigged. It 
appeared a strange craft when first introduced, but it had speed. 
In 1910 a yachting authority wrote that "the fastest going to the 
foot of boat length in American yachting today is found on board