Hoofer Haven

In a recent email to J-sailors, our illustrious fleet captain (a convicted felon?) wrote:

"Your instructor will check to see that you have done these hours before logging your new rating."

He claims that paid instructors have to do 3 work hours before getting any J ratings--just like everybody else--and then another 3 to maintain their fleet ratings each year.

Having been an instructor for several years now, I can confirm that instructors do not have to do J work hours to maintain their J ratings each year. They may technically be required to, but guess who enforces that rule..? There is nothing wrong with the requirement itself--it's a good one in that it helps promote involvement (of a sort) by club members. What irks me and others is the duplicity of BOC who claim they have to do those work hours too. Then they'll tell about all the other work they supposedly do for the club... like getting hammered at BOC meetings twice a month, and pier-in. Woo hoo.

As for having ex-cons on the BOC, I for one am all about second chances, but abusing and harassing innocent people while at the same time allowing ex-cons to run HSC just isn't right. In Jeff's defense, there are other felons working at the Union and Hoofers too, as well as some ex-employees.

fel·on ¹ (fĕl′ən)
n.
1. Law One who has committed a felony.
2. Archaic An evil person.

Note that you don't have to be convicted of a felony to be considered a felon; all you have to do is to have committed a felony. Many people get away with their crimes--especially State employees.

On a related topic, the website notes the increase in membership prices this season (except for instructors and their buddies, of course, who still get free memberships) and states:

"we will be increasing our Summer and Annual memberships rates on June 1, 2014 by only $10 for students and $15 for Union and Faculty/Staff."

Yet, on the membership page, the Union member rate is going from $295 to $315. That's $20 guys, not 15. Maybe you should take a break from texting during math class next fall. Note that membership rates are in effect going up an additional $5 because the deposit refund is being reduced from $65 to $60 (not that anyone gets their deposit back anyway.)

Blue Water Cruising

Finally some good news. On Sunday and Mon evenings, former commodore Pam Wall gave a nice slide-show presentation on her six year cruise around the world with her family. Much of the Sunday talk was friendly banter with the 25-30 people who attended, padded with sailing 101 stuff, e.g. "connect the halyard to the sail before raising it". Of course, if you're cruising across the Pacific solo and start cranking up a halyard with nothing attached to it, you could be in trouble...

Talking about their cruising equipment, e.g. sewn canvas dodgers (to keep water out of the hatches), mast steps (for climbing the mast), running lights mounted high up by the lifelines, using the whisker pole for wing-on-wing, etc, Pam said: "None of this stuff was our idea. This is all from looking at other boats and seeing what works."

Indeed, much of it is just common sense.

A better source for info on cruising equipment, rigging, safety at sea, and emergency conditions is Royce's Sailing Illustrated. There are lots of books out there on sailing, but Royce's is the only one that's a must-have (see sample page at right—picked especially for Hoofers! :) Known as "the sailor's bible", it puts the U.S. Sailing books (e.g. Basic Keelboat, Bareboat Cruising, etc.) to shame. And those are not bad books.