On river time

NEW LONDON — The waning summer sun glints off the bronze reflection of the Wolf River in New London, where a classic 1987 blue and white Carver cruiser is tied securely to the dock.
Inside the cabin, a wind-up cherry wood ship’s clock chimes a soft, dual-toned pattern. It is striking “eight bells,” signaling the end of a watch on the water.
For Wayne and Connie Schulze of Wild Rose, this isn’t just a brief stop on a weekend cruise—it’s an annual pilgrimage, a celebration of marriage, and a testament to a life lived on “river time.”
Every year around their anniversary in early September, the couple makes a trek up the Wolf River to New London. Their destination is a celebratory supper at The Waters Supper Club, a local landmark known for its warm hospitality and prime riverfront views.
“We really don’t have a set routine,” Wayne says, looking out over the water. “We eat on the boat more than we eat out. But I patronize the local places because they’re nice enough to let me stay on their dock, they have super nice people, and they’ve got the best food—like their salad bars. Tonight we’ll eat there because we’re meeting a friend, and it’s our anniversary soon.”

For the Schulzes, getting there is the entire point. In an era where modern boaters rush from point A to point B with roaring outboards, Wayne and Connie subscribe to a simpler, more deliberate creed: “Slow, no wake.”

The anatomy of the Yacht-A-Fun
At the heart of their journey is the Yacht-A-Fun, a name Wayne has proudly carried on his boats since 1988, when he purchased his first larger vessel. When he sold his previous boat, he carefully peeled the letters off the transom to transfer them to this 1987 Carver cruiser. Classified as a 27-footer back in its day because the swim platform was bolted onto the transom rather than integrated, the Yacht-A-Fun would be considered a 30-foot boat by today’s manufacturing standards.
Wayne has spent years customizing the vessel at its home port in Hidden Harbor Marina on Lake Poygan near Winneconne. The cruiser is a marvel of floating self-sufficiency. It features air conditioning, an electric heater, LED lighting, a flat-screen TV with surround sound, and a galley complete with a microwave, a newly installed refrigerator, and a flat-top grill.
Wayne’s proudest custom creation is the boat’s independent power system, affectionately named “Jennifer.” Unlike noisy off-the-shelf portable generators, “Jennifer” is a highly specialized generator system that feeds fuel directly from the boat’s main fuel tank and vents through a custom, water-cooled exhaust system.

“In the morning, the first thing I do is wake up Jennifer so we can have coffee,” Wayne laughs. “This morning we had breakfast sausage and waffles. I mixed up a batch of waffles. I got a waffle iron on board. A buddy of mine tells me, ‘Wayne, you got to be the only boat on the water that carries a waffle iron.’”
The Yacht-A-Fun is also a floating museum of nautical history. Hanging near the helm is a heavy, historic kerosene anchor light. It features a genuine Fresnel lens, the same thick “lighthouse glass” designed to amplify light so distant vessels won’t collide with an anchored boat. Nearby sits a decorative propeller bought at the Menasha Marina, mounted on a custom wooden base hand-carved by Wayne’s late grandfather.

A wedding on the water
The water is the thread that binds Wayne and Connie’s life together.
On Sept. 10, 2011, they celebrated their marriage with a nautical wedding on Lake Poygan that local boaters still talk about.

Connie, a self-described “farm girl” who grew up far from the docks, didn’t entirely know what she was getting into when she met Wayne. But on their wedding day, the entire celebration took to the waves.
“Everybody that was invited to the wedding got on the Fin boat [the Finn and Feather excursion vessel],” Wayne recalls. “You can fit 200 people on there, and we had two layers of people on the boat, so it was cool.”
While their guests watched from the double-decked excursion boat, Connie waited at the marina. In true maritime fashion, Wayne’s mother piloted the Yacht-A-Fun carrying the bride “down the aisle” of open lake water toward her groom, accompanied by her parents and the best man.
Since that day, Connie has fully embraced her role as the “admiral” of the Yacht-A-Fun. While Wayne is the captain, Connie is the one who meticulously maintains the “Admiral’s Log,” a journal they started in 2017. The log is a detailed record of their lives on the water, tracking daily trips, engine hours, maintenance, and visitors. By the time they return to Hidden Harbor from New London, they will have logged close to 1,000 miles for the summer, burning between 800 and 900 gallons of fuel.

A lifetime on the river

Wayne’s obsession with boats began long before he met Connie, stretching back to his childhood in Combined Locks. Interestingly, his father wasn’t a boater at all. “I don’t know where you ever got the liking for a boat,” his father used to say. “It wasn’t me.”
Instead, it was Wayne’s grandfather, Victor Schulze, the man Wayne looked up to more than anyone in the world, who fanned the spark. When Wayne was just 11 years old, he saved up grass-cutting money, and his grandfather helped him buy a simple, flat-bottom plywood rental resort boat for $35. Together, grandpa and grandson sanded her down, re-caulked the seams, and painted her. Victor bought him a three-horsepower Johnson motor, and Wayne was hooked for life, exploring the reservoir flowages of northeastern Wisconsin.
Wayne’s connection to these Wisconsin waterways runs deep. In the 1990s, during an annual corn roast at the Eureka Lock, a critical structural failure occurred. A threaded rod holding the massive lock timbers together snapped and dropped into the sill, trapping over 200 boats. Wayne, an experienced scuba diver, didn’t have his gear on board. He hitched a ride all the way back to Menasha to grab his tanks, dove into the murky waters with a truck jack, jacked the rod back into place, and secured it with a cable so every stranded family could safely return home. To this day, the Schulzes return to Eureka every year to support the local lock fundraiser.

The Great Loop
Cruising at a steady 7 mph, Wayne and Connie’s “slow, no wake” philosophy has allowed them to appreciate the quiet details of the river system from the shadows of bald eagles passing over the deck to the cardinals that Connie says “bring back all the loved ones that are no longer with us.”

Even as they enjoy their local rivers, they keep their eyes on a grander horizon: the Great Loop. The Loop is a continuous, 6,000-mile system of recreational waterways that encircles eastern North America, taking boaters up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, through the Great Lakes, down the inland river systems, and across the Gulf of Mexico.
“Seriously, I’m dreaming of it,” Wayne admits. “It’s been in my sights for a long time.”
The dream feels closer than ever. The Schulzes currently track their friends from Florida daily on a marine app. These friends, who share their slow-boating philosophy, are currently crewing on a massive 52-foot Carver cruiser owned by a Minnesota doctor. Because navigating the locks with a boat that size requires a minimum of four crew members, the doctor offered to cover all fuel and docking expenses in exchange for their help on the Loop.

The beauty of river time
As evening approaches in New London, Wayne and Connie prepare to step off the Yacht-A-Fun and head up the bank to The Waters Supper Club. They will sit at a table overlooking the river, order a classic Wisconsin old fashioned, and look out at the water that has defined their 15 years of marriage.

In a world that is constantly accelerating, the Schulzes have figured out the secret to a happy voyage. When asked about their deliberate seven mph pace, Wayne offers a piece of wisdom that serves as the perfect compass for their life together: “We’re just going to drink more beer when we get there anyway. Why rush?”