Unknown to most Hoofer Sailing Club members, there exists a secret club-within-the-club that only a scant few can ever join. Only the coolest, raddest, best-looking male club members are invited into this clique, known to some as the Pole Jumpers. Here's their inside story, revealed for the first time ever.
"Sailing is great fun, but what if you want more..? What if tacking upwind and popping back to Hoofers just isn't as much fun as it used to be? You're bored with that. You want some action, some excitement, some tighter camraderie. So, what else can you do in a big co-ed club like Hoofers? Well, boats aren't just for sailing anymore. There is lots of equipment that can be put to other good uses, including pole jumping.
Here's how it works. While sailing on a reach with the headsail down, you stand alongside the mast and grab onto the end of the spinnaker pole. Then someone else yanks the pole forward using the foreguy. Of course, this only works on the club's biggest boats (e.g. Soma). At exactly the right moment, you let go. Let go too soon and you'll trip on the lifelines. Wait too long and you'll land underneath the bow. Landing as far from the boat as possible is a good idea. When you hit the water, there is a tendency to spin around, and as it's dark out, you can easily lose your orientation. Getting back to the surface is not at all a given. Tumbling around underwater at night can be very scary—or very exciting if you're able to channel your fear.
Points and other favors are awarded for stunts. For example, you might score if you can do a back flip in the air and finish with something better than a bellyflop. And stripping off your shorts in mid-air will guarantee you a bigtime score. The ultimate is to use your momentum to fling yourself to the other side of the boat as the pole slams into the forestay—without getting run over. Variations can be done with the spinnaker actually up, but this requires more wind. After everyone has put on their own little show, you drop anchor, slam a few shots, and everyone jumps in together.
It's a test, of course, to see if you're man enough to bond with like-minded members. And since this club-within doesn't officially exist, it's hard to make any discrimination complaints.
Now, that's the story they want you to hear. The real purpose of the club-within is known only by its secret members. The rest of us can only guess at what they're really doing out there at night in the water.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Revenge, served Hoofer-style
A true story. One July day in 2004, the wind was screaming out of the southwest at 25kn. Although I already had my J heavy, I couldn't resist weather like this, so I left work early and raced to the lakefront, hoping to get a ride. Sure enough, someone had cancelled and there was space on a J22 lesson. Twenty minutes later, four of us were popping the chute and blasting out of the mooring field: myself, two newbies, and Drew Wilson, the Vice Commodore and an avid sailor--on dinghies and scows. How did he get hired to teach J lessons..? No matter. I was an experienced keelboat sailor, so if we got into trouble, yippee!
The next two hours flew by. After a couple of spinnaker runs, it was already time to douse. By now Drew was fairly pissed at me for giving orders. I wasn't trying to show him up, but he clearly hadn't sailed much in heavy weather, at least not on the J's, so I was naturally giving directions when necessary. But it was his lesson, and he had me standing on the transom now, just watching. What happened next was unclear.
As we raced into picnic bay, Drew tried to explain how to douse. There was something about blowing the guy, something about the sheet. Was it windward or leeward..? It didn't look like the crew were ready, but I was just an observer at this point. Suddenly, the chute was flying like a kite from the top of the mast, and Drew went berserk.
"What the f---!!" he screamed at one of the crew. "Why did you let go of the sheet?!"
Dumb stares all around. Too bad Drew had shut me up. I could have said something before the students did their naughty. We sailed in circles as people on shore shouted and laughed. Finally--after putting on a good show--we managed to catch one of the sheets and pulled the thing down. Drew didn't say any more to me until after we had docked.
When the other crew were out of earshot, he turned to me. "This was your fault," he sputtered.
"What?!" I laughed. "You were the instructor."
"You have a J rating, so you were responsible too." That might have been true had Drew not told me to shut up. Now he had to blame someone for his incompetence. Indeed, he was extra pissed because he wasn't a keelboater and was only teaching on the J's by virtue of his position as VC. In Hoofarts, it's not what you know but whom. Plus, he had got an earful when we landed, from people who didn't like seeing an expensive spinnaker handled like that. Drew would have his revenge soon enough, though.
The following weeks saw more strong southerly winds, and one day I took the J out with a friend. He was a sailor too, and a good one. The two of us rode the chute across the lake under puffy clouds, then beat our way back. It was a fantastic sail. As we approached the mooring field, a motorboat raced toward us. This was odd. As it got closer, I saw that it was Drew.
"Your ratings are suspended for a week!" he screamed from fifty yards away. "It's yellow flag and you don't have a skipper rating!"
Huh? I certainly did have a skipper rating, albeit on the larger keelboats. Wasn't that enough, combined with my heavy rating on the J's..? I'd checked the radar before we left and no weather was coming. None did either. Only the vengeful Drew. He had been keeping an eye on me, studying my ratings, waiting for the tiniest slip-up so he could get back at me for that J lesson he messed up. And now he had his revenge.
NOTE: this is a true story but the names have been changed.
The next two hours flew by. After a couple of spinnaker runs, it was already time to douse. By now Drew was fairly pissed at me for giving orders. I wasn't trying to show him up, but he clearly hadn't sailed much in heavy weather, at least not on the J's, so I was naturally giving directions when necessary. But it was his lesson, and he had me standing on the transom now, just watching. What happened next was unclear.
As we raced into picnic bay, Drew tried to explain how to douse. There was something about blowing the guy, something about the sheet. Was it windward or leeward..? It didn't look like the crew were ready, but I was just an observer at this point. Suddenly, the chute was flying like a kite from the top of the mast, and Drew went berserk.
"What the f---!!" he screamed at one of the crew. "Why did you let go of the sheet?!"
Dumb stares all around. Too bad Drew had shut me up. I could have said something before the students did their naughty. We sailed in circles as people on shore shouted and laughed. Finally--after putting on a good show--we managed to catch one of the sheets and pulled the thing down. Drew didn't say any more to me until after we had docked.
When the other crew were out of earshot, he turned to me. "This was your fault," he sputtered.
"What?!" I laughed. "You were the instructor."
"You have a J rating, so you were responsible too." That might have been true had Drew not told me to shut up. Now he had to blame someone for his incompetence. Indeed, he was extra pissed because he wasn't a keelboater and was only teaching on the J's by virtue of his position as VC. In Hoofarts, it's not what you know but whom. Plus, he had got an earful when we landed, from people who didn't like seeing an expensive spinnaker handled like that. Drew would have his revenge soon enough, though.
The following weeks saw more strong southerly winds, and one day I took the J out with a friend. He was a sailor too, and a good one. The two of us rode the chute across the lake under puffy clouds, then beat our way back. It was a fantastic sail. As we approached the mooring field, a motorboat raced toward us. This was odd. As it got closer, I saw that it was Drew.
"Your ratings are suspended for a week!" he screamed from fifty yards away. "It's yellow flag and you don't have a skipper rating!"
Huh? I certainly did have a skipper rating, albeit on the larger keelboats. Wasn't that enough, combined with my heavy rating on the J's..? I'd checked the radar before we left and no weather was coming. None did either. Only the vengeful Drew. He had been keeping an eye on me, studying my ratings, waiting for the tiniest slip-up so he could get back at me for that J lesson he messed up. And now he had his revenge.
NOTE: this is a true story but the names have been changed.
The crazy weasel
It's a truism that you can't learn how to handle emergencies without actually experiencing some. So it is that Hoofer keelboaters go looking for trouble, and often they find it.
One day I found myself on a Soma lesson, screaming toward Maple Bluff in 25kn winds, with puffs up around 30. The instructor was good ol' Pat Moroney, a 60ish balding guy with a baseball cap. I'd sailed with him plenty, on lessons and cruises, so I knew that Pat liked to sail on the edge. [Recklessness has its advantages: I'd learned a lot during a couple of broaches, although the crew who landed in the water may not have learned so much...but that's another story.]
Today was no exception. We hoisted the chute in picnic bay and rode it out. From the start, Pat was having a blast, so much so that he wouldn't let anyone else take the helm, even the two skipper candidates on board: myself, already with a skipper rating on Toyboat, and Kareb, a serious sailor from Greece with a cute wife. She was on board too, along with three less experienced students.
Things started to get out of hand as soon as we reached open water. As the two most experienced crew, Kareb and I were on the foredeck, reluctantly preparing to gybe.
"We have to douse!" I shouted back toward the cockpit. Kareb echoed that. I'd been in similar weather before on Toy, Maria, and other large keelboats, and I had learned one thing: 30 knot winds are simply not spinnaker weather. If you fly it, something will get damaged, be it equipment or crew. The boat was rolling so hard now that Kareb and I had to use both hands to hang on.
Pat's response came as no surprise. "Prepare to gybe!" he yelled again from astride the tiller, a look of idiotic determination on his face. Kareb and I looked at eachother, then shouted again to be sure he heard us.
"We're dousing!!" we yelled in unison at the top of our lungs. I looked up at the heavy chute, hard with air and marching back and forth before the mast now, and wondered how long it would last. Losing the spinnaker wasn't the only risk. The way the boat was rocking and rolling, we could also do a flying gybe or round up hard. Either could cause serious injury. But again the robotic response from the cockpit.
"No, we're gyyybing! Get ready!" The four other crew were gripping the handrails like baby monkeys on their mother's back, hanging on for dear life. Suddenly, the matter resolved itself. With a loud pop, the spinnaker halyard snapped and the chute billowed into the water in front of us.
Reflexively, Kareb and I scrambled to the lifelines and started pulling the chute in as fast as we could, but it was settling faster than we could gather it in. We were going to run it over, and then we'd surely get tangled up! At best, the chute would be destroyed. I pulled as fast as I could, gashing myself on meathooks on the old lifeline as I did. Much of the chute was in the water now, and getting heavier fast as it started to go under the bow. Incredibly, Kareb and I managed to get it aboard just in time. The head--with a length of red halyard still attached--slid up from amidships. We were soaked and bleeding, but the spinnaker was saved.
Back on shore, Kareb's wife and another student tracked me down, knowing that I was the second most experienced person on board and also a keelboat skipper. Although it was a warm July day, both of them were shivering, or shaking.
"Was that safe..?" asked -----. Her friend just stared, eyes wide.
Now it was my turn to be the robot, to do my part to protect Hoofers. "Sure," I said, my eyes betraying disgust with Pat. "I've been in windier conditions than that. Soma can handle anything." Of course, people and sails are a different matter. Later, I would be grilled by the fleet captain about why we tried a gybe instead of just dousing, as if it had been my decision. And sometime after that, I would learn that Pat had told him it was.
NOTE: this story is absolutely true, but the names have been changed.
One day I found myself on a Soma lesson, screaming toward Maple Bluff in 25kn winds, with puffs up around 30. The instructor was good ol' Pat Moroney, a 60ish balding guy with a baseball cap. I'd sailed with him plenty, on lessons and cruises, so I knew that Pat liked to sail on the edge. [Recklessness has its advantages: I'd learned a lot during a couple of broaches, although the crew who landed in the water may not have learned so much...but that's another story.]
Today was no exception. We hoisted the chute in picnic bay and rode it out. From the start, Pat was having a blast, so much so that he wouldn't let anyone else take the helm, even the two skipper candidates on board: myself, already with a skipper rating on Toyboat, and Kareb, a serious sailor from Greece with a cute wife. She was on board too, along with three less experienced students.
Things started to get out of hand as soon as we reached open water. As the two most experienced crew, Kareb and I were on the foredeck, reluctantly preparing to gybe.
"We have to douse!" I shouted back toward the cockpit. Kareb echoed that. I'd been in similar weather before on Toy, Maria, and other large keelboats, and I had learned one thing: 30 knot winds are simply not spinnaker weather. If you fly it, something will get damaged, be it equipment or crew. The boat was rolling so hard now that Kareb and I had to use both hands to hang on.
Pat's response came as no surprise. "Prepare to gybe!" he yelled again from astride the tiller, a look of idiotic determination on his face. Kareb and I looked at eachother, then shouted again to be sure he heard us.
"We're dousing!!" we yelled in unison at the top of our lungs. I looked up at the heavy chute, hard with air and marching back and forth before the mast now, and wondered how long it would last. Losing the spinnaker wasn't the only risk. The way the boat was rocking and rolling, we could also do a flying gybe or round up hard. Either could cause serious injury. But again the robotic response from the cockpit.
"No, we're gyyybing! Get ready!" The four other crew were gripping the handrails like baby monkeys on their mother's back, hanging on for dear life. Suddenly, the matter resolved itself. With a loud pop, the spinnaker halyard snapped and the chute billowed into the water in front of us.
Reflexively, Kareb and I scrambled to the lifelines and started pulling the chute in as fast as we could, but it was settling faster than we could gather it in. We were going to run it over, and then we'd surely get tangled up! At best, the chute would be destroyed. I pulled as fast as I could, gashing myself on meathooks on the old lifeline as I did. Much of the chute was in the water now, and getting heavier fast as it started to go under the bow. Incredibly, Kareb and I managed to get it aboard just in time. The head--with a length of red halyard still attached--slid up from amidships. We were soaked and bleeding, but the spinnaker was saved.
Back on shore, Kareb's wife and another student tracked me down, knowing that I was the second most experienced person on board and also a keelboat skipper. Although it was a warm July day, both of them were shivering, or shaking.
"Was that safe..?" asked -----. Her friend just stared, eyes wide.
Now it was my turn to be the robot, to do my part to protect Hoofers. "Sure," I said, my eyes betraying disgust with Pat. "I've been in windier conditions than that. Soma can handle anything." Of course, people and sails are a different matter. Later, I would be grilled by the fleet captain about why we tried a gybe instead of just dousing, as if it had been my decision. And sometime after that, I would learn that Pat had told him it was.
NOTE: this story is absolutely true, but the names have been changed.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Eunuchs
According to Hoofer legend, a large, prehistoric fish has prowled the depths of Lake Mendota for many years. Some say the fish—possibly a pirarucu or a very large sturgeon or alligator gar—was released by a Madison resident when it became too big for its tank, eventually growing to more than ten feet in size.
As the story goes, while swimming off a boat one day, the club's first commodore was attacked below the waist by the carnivorous fish and lost all function in those parts. Today, like 15th Century Oriental captains, every new commodore must undergo mock castration as part of his installation ceremony. Later, during Commodore's Cup, he is carted around in a rickshaw for all to see.
No one knows for sure if the huge fish still exists, but evidence occasionally surfaces in the form of a half-eaten deer or pig. Several swimmers and canoers have also vanished into the lake in recent years, their disappearances still unsolved. Believe it or not.
As the story goes, while swimming off a boat one day, the club's first commodore was attacked below the waist by the carnivorous fish and lost all function in those parts. Today, like 15th Century Oriental captains, every new commodore must undergo mock castration as part of his installation ceremony. Later, during Commodore's Cup, he is carted around in a rickshaw for all to see.
No one knows for sure if the huge fish still exists, but evidence occasionally surfaces in the form of a half-eaten deer or pig. Several swimmers and canoers have also vanished into the lake in recent years, their disappearances still unsolved. Believe it or not.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Coming soon!
Hoofer legend and lore. Check back again! In the meantime, leave your stories, anecdotes, and tales of lore here!
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