Welcome to Madison...when are you leaving?

JULY '18 UPDATE: People criticize us for criticizing Hoofers and Wisconsin in general--this blog post, for example (see comment below). Well, here's a recent article in The Isthmus revealing that the founder of Hoofers and first director of Memorial Union, Porter Butts, was a member of the KKK. That certainly helps to explain some things. One can only wonder what other embarrassments will come out in the future.

DEEP IN THE HEART OF WISCONSIN, where fat high school dropouts hunt infected deer for entertainment, lies the former liberal stronghold of Madison. The best thing about Madison today is that lots of roads lead out of town. No longer mentioned in the same breath with Berkeley, CA, Madison has recently seen the closing of its oldest food co-op (Mifflin) and the conversion of its largest radio station to a Rush Limbaugh-pumping propaganda machine. Even worse, Madison's progressive daily newspaper, the Capital Times, was finally forced to turn off its presses in 2008—even as the more conservative Wisconsin State Journal kept going. The state's largest university is here, too, and can't help but be affected by the slide into mediocrity and conservatism.

Hidden on the northeast end of campus is the Hoofer Sailing Club, the largest and perhaps most discriminatory collegiate sailing club in the country (if not the world). The club discriminates based on race, religion, and anything else they think they can get away with. If you're a hip, good-looking, 21-year-old white guy (or girl), though, don't worry--you won't have any trouble. Club leaders typically sprout from among the large campus Greek system, and it's from there that they apparently learn how to treat people who are different. UW-Madison fraternities are known for their exclusionary practices. In recent years, several UW-Madison frats have been disbanded for racial activities--one for throwing a "blackface" party and another for holding a mock "slave" auction! (see NY Times article.)

Guys, it's not the 1940s anymore.

Amazingly, racism still thrives along Langdon Street (and in Hoofers) in 2011. But then, whaddya expect in a place (Madison) where most of the students are redneck white boys who grew up in towns like Green Bay, La Crosse, and Eau Claire where the black population is 1% or less..?

Campus frats are also known for their degrading treatment of women. Any female undergraduate who ends up on Langdon St. after bartime is liable to find a roofie in her drink. After that, of course, anything can happen (most of it illegal). As in Hoofers, the objective is not to correct serious behavioral problems like date rape, but rather is to protect your buddies at any cost.

Incredibly, this criminal mentality extends all the way from lowly Hoofers through Wis. Union administration to the UW-Madison Chancellor's office and beyond--even to the district attorney's office and the circuit court. All of the aforementioned are State of Wis. employees, and they've got eachother's backs. The more you question or complain about things, the worse it will be for you because the law doesn't apply to state employees.

Hoofers is proud to help keep the Wisconsin Tradition alive. The sailing club's favorite tactic for abusing unpopular club members is to start vicious rumors about them. That's easy when you have private e-mail lists set up for club leaders and instructors. In effect, that lets others do the abuse for you. For example, start a rumor that someone is dangerous and pretty soon no one will want to sail with them. If nothing else, they sure won't get hired to teach lessons. Or you could start a rumor that someone's been vandalizing club equipment. That won't make them any more popular. The club keeps lists of dirt on people they don't like, passing it to current club leaders as necessary. It doesn't matter if any of it is true because the target will never find out. One good way to put yourself on the radar real quick is by asking to see some of those emails--when you're not a current club leader or instructor.

At any rate, if you feel you just have to sail this year and just have to do it at Hoofers, keep the following in mind. If you do join "the club", keep your mouth shut and take what's offered. Maybe a dinghy rating will be enough for you (although half of all club members never even get that).

Free snow kiting this Sunday

Sailing isn't dead in the winter, but you might be. Just imagine "capsizing" while doing 30 knots in an iceboat and landing face-first on hard, bumpy ice. Not quite as much fun as capsizing your Tech on a sunny July day on the lake! Thin ice makes for an equally nasty experience as you hit the gap doing 30 and plunge through into the icy water.

Snow kiting isn't quite as dangerous as regular iceboating because you've got that kite to hold on to, but both are considered "extreme sports", meaning it's one extreme or the other: light wind and you don't even go, or heavy wind (like we've been having for the past few days) and you'll scream along due to the low coefficient of dynamic friction. Extremely cold and boring, or extremely cold and dangerous. Don't forget to bring your helmet. (orig. 2008)

2010 Instructor Evaluations

Today (Thurs 7/16/2010), in a 12 knot WNW wind--perfect for landing practice, Randy Mullis had his J29 students practice "landings". Here they come.....

[CLICK for Randy's full eval (requires Javascript)]

First attempt: They cruised in, spun up into the wind, and... came up short. Then they backwinded. Why? There was a motorboat anchored about 100 ft. E of the sloop pier. Their problem was that they backwinded to port instead of to starboard, which tried to swing the J29's stern the wrong way! Fortunately the motorboat was able to get out of the way, and the wind shifted and they were able to power up before getting to the swimming area.

They came in again. Bam! Stopped 10 ft from the pier on starboard tack, the bow turning slowly in toward shore and toward the large red keelboat that was tied up alongside the near end of the sloop pier... Randy is so soft spoken, he just let his poor students solve their predicament themselves. They powered up just enough to thump the pier on starboard tack in front of the red boat, with NO margin for error.

Third try: not bad--came up short, but at least they were on port tack this time.

Fourth try: came up short again, once again on the wrong tack, powering up on starboard tack again, but it's hard to power up on a close reach, getting precariously close to the red keelboat now, with no room to even think about a gybe, desperately tossed bowline to Randy on pier, but... no one taught them how to heave a line so the line just flopped into the water! Reeled it in, tossed it again, Randy got a wrap. That's all I could stand to watch.

In Randy's defense: no one around here ever teaches how to heave a line. Nor is heeling the boat taught as a way to steer it (with keelboats). All four students just stood there on that first attempt instead of jumping to the starboard rail (or should they have jumped to port..? If you know the answer, then you should have been teaching this lesson!)

Sailing skill: 5
Teaching skill: 4
Party value: 4
Ruthlessness: 4 and climbing
Intangibles: 7

MEAN SCORE: 4.8/10

[CLICK for Chris Frye's evaluation]

Having obtained several large keelboat ratings in exchange for favors, Chris can now "teach" lessons. Chris has proven to be a marginally competent instructor who likes his ice cream breaks. From inside the boathouse, he can watch his students bomb the pier with the J29. Last year, Chris realized that he'd really like to get paid for teaching on the J29, so he used his considerable weight (no pun intended) with the BOC to push for paid keelboat instruction. Now in 2010, there is $1100 budgeted just for Chris to teach on the J29. He's hoping the keel doesn't fall off before he can get ahold of all that cash. In all, $2950 is budgeted in 2010 for teaching on the large keelboats that wasn't budgeted last year--or ever before. That's about 20 paid annual memberships-- assuming people get their deposits back. In reality, most suckers, er, paying club members cannot ever get their deposits back, even if they want to.

Prior to his romp as an instructor and as commodore (for which he got paid a $1000 stipend), Chris was J Fleet Captain and presided over the demasting of a J24 (after forgetting to secure the stays at lift-in), the sinking of a J22 in the mooring field (God only knows how), and other screw-ups. In 2008 he was amazed when Knotty Rascal's mast came down under sail. Then, he ran the J29 aground so hard that the keel almost broke off. Chris' party value is high.

Sailing skill: 3
Teaching skill: 3
Party value: 8
Ruthlessness: 8
Intangibles: 5

SUMMARY: Not recommended (not for sailing lessons anyway)

[CLICK for Jeanne Morledge]

Were it not for the club's sailboards, Jeanne might have fled Hoofers long ago. It's unfortunate that she can't pass her frame of mind along to more Hoofer leaders, but that would be like turning crocodiles into vegetarians.

Sailing skills: 8
Teaching skill: 8
Party value: 5
Ruthlessness: 2
Intangibles: 6

SUMMARY: Highly recommended

[CLICK for George Friou]

Back for action in 2010 is longtime keelboat instructor George Friou. Eyes on the target, George, eyes on the target!

Sailing skills: 8
Teaching skill: 6.5
Party value: 6
Ruthlessness: 5
Intangibles: 6

SUMMARY: Recommended

[CLICK for Dan Jenkins]

By sticking with it for more than a decade, Dan has finally been rated on the big boats. Unfortunately, ratings aren't everything.

Sailing skills: 3
Teaching skill: 4
Party value: 1
Ruthlessness: 7
Intangibles: -0

SUMMARY: Avoid like blue-green algae

[CLICK for explanation of ratings]

Instructors are here evaluated primarily based on their sailing and teaching skills, though as far as the HSC Hiring Committee is concerned, those crucial skills are secondary. Three other factors are listed for each instructor: (a) Party value--though irrelevant to an individual's qualification to teach sailing, party value is the single most important factor used by the Hiring Committee when deciding whether to "hire" someone! (b) Ruthlessness is a measure of the individual's political leanings, e.g. will they slander someone when called upon or capriciously remove a rating to keep an upstart in check..? That sort of thing. Think fraternity hazing. (c) Intangibles are intuitive and are not given too much weight although they obviously affect a person's interview and interactions with others. Scores are on a scale from 1-10.

You could call the latter three the A-B-C's of getting hired in Hoofers.

Check back as evaluations are added throughout the season. For the time being, new instructors will not be evaluated.
NOTE: All HSC instructors are government employees employed by the State of Wisconsin.