Hoofer Shakedown

Uh oh. He's baaack! It seems that JC is once again "teaching" ASA lessons (check out the current lessons calendar). Hoofers is able to fill these expensive lessons because, as P. T. Barnum noted, there's a customer born every minute.

Is it too late to get your money back? (answer: yes, no refunds.) But here's some inside info: our recent post explained why Hoofer ASA lessons are not a good idea. They don't qualify you for anything, much less to skipper a charter yacht. Better to just join Hoofers and take lots of keelboat lessons.

But that comes with its own set of problems. If you can avoid being ripped off, and if you can stay out of club politics, you can learn learn a lot about sailing.

But it takes years to learn to become a good sailor, and Hoofers pretending that they can teach you in a short course is simply dishonest. You might learn something in a Hoofer ASA course: what not to do. But that's not the same as learning to sail.

Check out the video above to see what a Hoofers ASA sailing "lesson" is really like. NOTE: keelboats do not launch off the canoe pier!