The Hoofer Sailing Club Bylaws state that the commodore shall:

"inform the general membership of the Sailing Club of all decisions of the Board of Captains by posting the minutes of all meetings of the Board of Captains on the Sailing Club bulletin board."

Um, where are those then..? They weren't posted on any bulletin board that we could find. Perhaps the website qualifies these days, but the minutes aren't there either. Oh wait.... the Bylaws don't specify when the minutes have to be posted. Does that mean they can be posted 20 years from now..?! Would that be "keeping the general membership informed?

It's disturbing that the commodore can violate rules as he pleases with no consequences whatsoever. (unless corrupt Union managers are targeting him, but that's another story). Yet, when other club members violate even the tiniest rule, they get cornholed. (that is, unless they happen to be buddies with the commodore).

Meet the Commodore

Meet the new Hoofer Sailing Commodore, Matt Duesrt, a.k.a. Sphinx. In the photo, Sphinx seems to be saying, "Get the f--- away from me!" Does he think he's a movie star..? Indeed, Sphinx does not like to be bothered with questions or problems, and his response is typically, "Leave me alone!".

Sphinx is waay too cool to be concerned with violations of club rules or similar such nonsense. So if you do have any problems (and there are many in Hoofers), contact the Union Director instead. Or better yet, your lawyer.

Winding Down

September has seen the inauguration of a new commodore, Matt Duerst, and things are looking up already--Matt has finally gotten someone to update the website to show current BOC members, something the former commodore never bothered to do in his 12 excruciating months as commodore.

But wait... what's this, a club "photographer"..? Is that a BOC position?! Does the club really need to pay someone to take photos when we've already got photos coming out the wazoo? Everyone and their mother has a digital camera these days. If you want photos, just send a message to club members to bring their cameras with them and share the photos later. No one wants to help pay for a "club photographer" even if photography is really fun. There is of course the question of quantity vs. quality, but unless the new official photographer has a degree in photography, that's not an issue.

And what's this now...an official BOC position for "Lakefront Beautificator"!? Can I have that job?? I'll be out there scrubbing the concrete 24/7. Promise.

We'll keep an eye on these and other new developments, but for now let's all keep our fingers crossed that '08-09 will be a banner year.

The annual ritual

Last Thursday, a handful of long-time club members gathered in a dark room with beer and chips to decide the club's future. What..? You thought I was talking about the typical BOC (Board of Captains) meeting? Actually, that's pretty much the same scenario, but I was talking about the annual commodore election!

At the "election", the funky monkeys and their sock puppets gave speeches, everyone shook hands, mingled, and tried to act serious. Finally they "elected" a new commodore, code name Sphinx, who promised new boats, lower membership fees, more club members, better planning, and so on and so forth. Sound familiar..? Each person got one vote (except people who managed to get ahold of some extra ballots--there's no telling how many votes they got.)

As club members deposited their ballots, several people appeared to put a whole handful in. One claimed he was dropping off ballots for a friend who had to leave. But then, how did the friend have time to vote..?! Oddly, a number of ballots were later found mixed in with the chips. Viva la monkey.

Incomprehensible

Eleven months into Chris Frye's one year term as commodore, no BOC minutes have yet been posted to the website by "secretary" Chas. None at all, for the past 11 months!! That's some 25 BOC meetings! Aren't minutes supposed to be posted, like, every couple of weeks..? What is Chas getting a free membership for?? (And is Chas even the secretary..? There's no way of knowing since the BOC informacion isn't current either.)

Of course, club members don't care what happens behind the scenes anyway because (a) they have no control over what happens, and (b) there are no club members! Hence, no BOC minutes.

Misinformation--or no information at all--is a standard tactic for fighting wars and for controlling other people. In that light, I guess the lack of posted minutes is perfectly comprehensible.

Trying to hide

Now that C-Cup has been fully milked, maybe the commodore has time to update the website to show this year's BOC. Eleven months into his term as commodore, the website still lists last year's BOC.

The UW-Milwaukee Sailing Club not only lists email addresses for its club officers but also their phone numbers so that club members can actually contact someone when necessary. Apparently in Hoofers, you're expected to come wander the lakefront, hoping to cross paths with the club officer you seek--not that most general club members even know what they look like. Are Hoofer leaders afraid of all the complaints they'd get if it were easier to contact them..?

Commodore's Cup to honor Beavis

Commodore's Cup officially begins tomorrow and is open to anyone, especially cool people. Sign up at the boathouse, or save your money and show up anyway.

Update--July 17: Commodore's Cup is underway and the commodore himself has been spotted on several occasions!

At least, we think he's still the commodore. But according to club rules, he cannot be because he's not a UW-Madison student, although he may have registered last fall. Unfortunately, the club's constitution is a bit vague on this. It says:

Section 1. The Commodore and Vice-Commodore shall be Sailing Club members and UW-Madison students.

Perhaps registering in the Fall is sufficient, although for all other known purposes, an individual is not considered a student during the following summer unless s/he was registered for the spring semester too. And of course, being commodore during the summer is what it's all about. This may be one for the legal gurus.

Incase there was any doubt...

As if the exclusive red lifejackets, private parties, paid training, fast-track to ratings, access to the club's library and photos, lakefront keys, and other exclusive benefits and privileges weren't enough, a new sign (see image) on the boathouse this year proclaims to general club members and everyone else who reads it--juust incase they were wondering-- that "We are cooler than you!" That is, Hoofer Sailing instructors are cooler than the other 90% of club members who are paying them.

Those of us observing Hoofers already knew that instructors were cool. Not necessarily good sailors or teachers, but extremely cool. They have every right to post large, laminated, color flyers announcing that they are cool. If I'm better than you, by God, I'm going to let people know.

Is the sign supposed to be tongue-in-cheek..? After all, it does say "you" can sail and party with "us". Hmmm. Of course, any club member can sign up for a lesson and "sail" "with" an instructor. But that's hardly sailing with someone as a friend or equal. Furthermore, instructor parties are not announced to the general club membership. Hence, to party with "us", you have to somehow find out about our parties (try climbing over the wall to the instructor cubicle), also find out where they are (locality changes from week to week), and then crash them!

Hey, if you're cool enough to party with us, you should be able to do that. (BYOB please).

Slow learners or poor teachers?

A quick look at a random sampling of ratings shows some interesting stuff. Of the 92 club members with last names beginning with K - M, their ratings break down as follows:

7 have ratings on at least three different types of craft
15 have a Tech rating plus one other rating (mostly sailboard)
32 have a Tech light rating only
38 have no ratings at all

Thus, three-fourths of all club members never advance any further than a Tech light rating! Importantly, these ratings statistics are a snapshot of club makeup that will not change appreciably from one year to the next. Annual memberships can be bought at any time, expiring exactly one year later. Thus, although some of the people who joined early this year will have more rating(s) by September or by 2009 (if they re-join the club), the memberships of other people who have ratings will have expired in the meantime.

News Flash!

As a result of the recent record rainfall and flooding throughout southern Wisconsin, Lake Mendota is now a very large septic tank. Until further notice, none of the small Hoofer boats should be sailed because they can easily capsize, and no windsurfing unless you want to end up with an eye infection, ear infection, or amoebic dysentary. The Union's swimming pier was closed (and fenced off!) today.

Latest info: http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/news/view.cfm?news_id=927

NOTE: As of 6/30/08, there are toxic blue-green algae warnings that will probably continue for the rest of the summer.

Predators, parasites, and prey

Hoofer Sailing Club as currently organized functions as an active farm where those in charge prey on the vast majority of club members in parasitic fashion, like tapeworms in the gut of a large mammal. They do this by:

(1) falsely advertizing the benefits of club membership.
(2) obtaining membership fees from lots of people and using those fees to pay themselves.
(3) making sure that they don't give out too many ratings (except to eachother).
(4) by re-hiring eachother to teach lessons year after year.
(5) by appointing eachother to key Board of Captains positions after electing eachother to commodore and vice-commodore every year.
(6) by using a "work hours deposit" to coerce general club members into doing the menial supporting tasks such as data entry, boat repairs, food preparation, cleaning up the lakefront, etc.

Note that the work hours deposit recently got doubled. That was a clever move. And yet, 90% of club members have no say whatsoever in how the club is run, except (laugh) when they get to cast their vote for commodore each August. Only about 5% of club members even bother to vote in that election.

Thus the 90% are there (i.e. join the club) to serve the 10%, although of course they don't realize it at the time. They think they joined to learn how to sail. If someone pays their $200 membership fee, takes a couple of lessons, gets disgusted, and is never seen again, do club leaders care..? Of course not--that's the best kind of club member: Leave the money and run! The worst kind are the complainers--the ones who demand ratings on boats they're qualified to sail. They have to be dealt with, with disciplinary action for example, or by deleting the entire Forum in 2006. Club leaders have even been known to consult with attorneys so they could change club rules and administer more severe punishment to unsuspecting club members.

Hoofer Sailing wants your cash!

Hoofer leaders urgently need a large influx of cash to help pay their friends, er, the hired staff. All major credit cards accepted!

New this year, you can join the club for four years at a time. No more having to get your checkbook out every single year! Why did the club come up with this insidious plan?

Could it be because membership is dropping and they want to snare people for as long as possible up front..? Read the fine print: NO REFUNDS. If you join for four years, and then find out a month later that the club sucks or that you don't really care for sailing, you just dropped more than five hundred bucks. Or your parents did.

Paid staff, eels, and other slippery things

So today I'm walking past the 420s and scows and there's this guy standing on the foredeck of an I-20 looking up the mast. He says, "Hey, can you show me how to rig this thing? I've only sailed it once, and I have to teach a lesson in half an hour!" He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to another "instructor" working on a 420 a few feet away, and he wasn't joking.

Now, I've been taking I-20 lessons for two years, maybe once a month, not spending a whole ton of time but I'm not all that keen on sailing them. Yet, although I can sail one heeled in 15 knots and jibe it without capsizing, I still don't have that goshdarn rating for some reason. Meanwhile, here's a guy who is obviously clueless, and he's instructing..!?

What if I'd been on his lesson today..? Would I be getting my money's worth? Not only does he not know what he's doing, and not only is he getting a free club membership to sail whatever boats he likes, and not only is he also getting paid by the hour--by me--I obviously know more than he does, and if I'd been signed up for his "lesson", I would have ended up teaching him!

This sort of thing is not the exception but rather is the rule at Hoofers. Instructors can check off whatever ratings they'd like as soon as they're "hired", and it usually takes one quick sail on a boat to get rated. On the other hand, I'm just a "general" club member who paid dues (i.e. a cash cow). Welcome to Hoofers.

Paying wages in a club environment is the root of the problem. If you've got a cush job, you'll do whatever you can to keep it from one year to the next. That means denying volunteer applicants and rehiring your buddies instead--regardless of their sailing or teaching skills. The official interview guidelines (obtained by our operatives) actually state that "how fun" a person is is the most important hiring criterion!! And since it's last year's instructors who do the "hiring", they are naturally inclined to re-hire their friends instead of someone who might actually be better qualified. Think about it. If you're not their sailing or party buddy, your fun level (to them) is zero.

The official explanation is that the quality of instruction must be maintained and that paid staff are the answer. That's a load of bull because (1) there's no way to know if someone will be a good teacher unless you let them try it, and (2) many of the paid instructors are incompetent. Paid instructors are offered whatever ratings they want as soon as they're hired, at which point they can immediately start teaching lessons on those fleets (for an hourly wage, no less). This often leads to poor instruction on the sloops, scows, and J-boats, especially by paid staff (as seen from the true anecdote above). That is to say, paid staff have a shortcut to ratings while everyone else has to earn them. Thus, volunteer (unpaid) instructors, i.e. regular club members, are often better sailors and better instructors!

A final concern is the question of education. It can be expected that any and every organization which is part of the state's largest university has education as its fundamental goal. In particular, this includes teaching teachers. Thus, in Hoofers one should expect to learn not only how to sail but also how to teach sailing. It seems therefore that every club member who wants to teach lessons should be allowed to do so at some point. Yet, the archaic system of entrenched favors persists, its purpose being to serve itself by rewarding popular, fun guys who also happen to be passable sailors.

Naughty Rascals

Today in club news: the mast broke on one of the club's largest boats, Knotty Rascal. Yes, slow down and read that again: The mast snapped in half on the club's 27 ft cruising yacht--while it was under sail! Club leaders quickly yelled "vandalism!"

Think about that. Either it was vandalism (extremely unlikely), or it was gross negligence. Someone could have been seriously injured had they been hit by the falling rig. The boat had to be towed in afterwards. Even if you're not a sailor, you know that a boat's mast should never, ever come down, except maybe in a hurricane.

KR is a cruiser with wheel steering, a large cabin, and an engine. Don't imagine you'll ever be able to sail it, though--even if the mast gets fixed and you cough up the bucks to join Hoofers (oof). The ratings checklist for KR has almost 500 items on it!! The boat is strictly reserved for club leaders and their friends (like all the club's best boats).

Putting the incident in context

Worst of all, the Knotty Rascal incident is just typical Hoofers. Last year, it was something else. The year before that, something else. Since 2004, two Hoofer keelboats (small yachts) have sunk, one has bombed the pier so hard it had to be lifted out of the water the next day, another had the mast snapped in half (though not while sailing), and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple. Yippee! We're sailors!

Meanwhile, the commodore is busy plotting how to abuse long-time club members who are demanding ratings on boats they've been sailing for the past ten years. Welcome to the Hoofer sailing club.

Instructor Hiring

Well, it's that time of year again. The Hoofer Sailing Club leadership is going through the annual ritual of pretending to interview and hire instructors. As usual, you can bet the instructor corps will end up being the same old (not literally), 20-ish, hip white crowd, most of whom think it's cool to drive drunk in their underwear. As for actual instructing and ratings, expect the same reciprocated favors as usual.

Fun fact: Did you know the instructor exam is only used to weed out unpopular applicants? Yes--the results are tossed when popular, fun guys score poorly. What does that say about the commitment to quality instruction..?

More corruption at the Union

Today's Daily Cardinal had a front page story on mismanagement and abuse at the Wisconsin Union. Thirty three employees, most of them students, signed a letter to the Dean of Students complaining about mismanagement and abuse in their Wis. Union jobs--by their supervisor. They named some guy (facilities manager?) but of course it's really a trickle down effect from Union Director Mark Guthier who oversees all bad things at the Union.

This may not seem like sailing news, but it is if any Hoofer employees signed onto that letter. Guthier had some idiotic things to say in defending Union management, e.g. "That's only 5% of our 700 employees..." Five percent?! That seems like a lot to me, especially considering that most people won't complain even if they are being mistreated. So in reality, the percentage is probably much higher.

Another article revealed widespread "theft" by Stiftskeller employees. Apparently whenever someone pays for a pitcher with exact change, they take it as a tip and ring up "NO SALE". Obviously, the Union should lower its beer prices so less cash gets stolen! :P

In any case, it's clear that corruption permeates the Wisconsin Union from top to bottom.... and there's your connection to Hoofers, by the way.

That was waay too hard

Beavis would say, "Heh-heh, he said hard." That header was a real pain in the butt.

What exactly is a club "leader"?

The online dictionary defines lead·er as
1. One that leads or guides.
2. One who is in charge or in command of others.

It's clear that Hoofer "leaders" have taken no. 2 to heart. Instead of leading and guiding, they take control--of equipment and other resources. This means ratings are problematic. If they rate you on a particular boat, then they've lost control over you. As Henry Kissinger said, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

Perhaps this is why you so often see club "leaders" inappropriately ripping their clothes off and jumping in while general club members stare in disbelief. Of course, most club members aren't slurping the aphrodisiac. Quite the contrary, they're sucking up to the "leaders" with the hope of getting rated on a particular boat, or hoping for some other favor. What Kissinger didn't mention is that power, by definition, relies on keeping power away from others.

Hoofer Sailing Club--Wikipedia

In current news, there's a raging edit war over the Hoofer Sailing Club article in Wikipedia. Some people (BOC?) evidently don't like to see any criticisms and have repeatedly vandalised the article. One person ("Fleetcaptain") has made more than one hundred separate edits to the page over the past week! He removed well supported criticisms, messed up the article with more than 40 separate subheadings to make it unreadable, and added tons of trivia. Not really appropriate for an "encyclopaedic" article, unless you're hammered or high on crack.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofer_Sailing_Club and click on history. More coming soon....

...

Shenanigans

Okay, the site is finally up! Here you'll find news and information on all sorts of things the sailing club doesn't post (or allow) on its own website. Hopefully this can also serve as the club's new FORUM now that the hoofersailing.org Forum has been censored by club leaders. This should also free up the keelboat list from non-keelboat related items.

The Pole Jumpers

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.

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 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.

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.

Coming soon!

Hoofer legend and lore. Check back again! In the meantime, leave your stories, anecdotes, and tales of lore here!