Fire in the Works

Yesterday, one of our operatives en route to a sailing lesson noticed the new "Hoofer smoking area" (see photo). Note the cigarette disposal right in front of the gasolene tanks and gas storage. Heh heh. Aren't cigarettes basically, like, on fire right before you put them out..? I'm surprised Hoofers didn't save a few bucks and just use an empty gas can instead for disposal.

Not to be outdone, the City of Madison is also flaunting its idiotic nature by holding the annual 4th-of-July fireworks a week before the 4th of July—on June 27. My housemates and I didn't even know about the fireworks until we heard them start at 10PM on Saturday night! Did everyone in city government just have a chemical lobotomy..?

Independence Day, as it's called, is a national holiday that occurs every year on July 4. Not July 3, not July 5, and definitely not in June. If the city can't afford a calendar, there are free ones online for shit's sake. Holding the fireworks a week early not only suggests the kind of inbred stupidity usually restricted to Appalachia but also offends one of the great American holiday traditions. This year they were called Shake the Lake due to an apparent lack of interest in funding "Rhythm and Booms" anymore. What?

Our bet is that the same people who organized R&B, er, S&L, are also active in lakefront planning. Perhaps the fireworks were held a week early so people can go see some real ones in Milwaukee next weekend. Yeah. We are so outta here.

Comment on Hoofer Sailing death

The death of 22 year old Mohammad Bagabir, an Edgewood College student from Saudi Arabia who drowned after jumping off one of the Hoofer O'Day 25 cruisers on June 6, is a tragedy. Presumably he was a good swimmer or else he wouldn't have jumped in without a lifejacket. In hindsight, it's a bit surprising that something like this didn't happen sooner at HSC given the number of non-swimmers who go out on Hoofer boats (non-swimmers have always been required to wear a lifejacket).

Nevertheless, the rumored new rule that everyone will now have to wear lifejackets all the time is, if true, just the sort of reactionary and self-serving misdirection Union management and Hoofers have used for years to try to hide or sugarcoat things like discrimination, negligence, cronyism, criminal acts by Union employees, and so on. Forcing good swimmers to wear lifejackets on hot days in 5-10 knots of wind will only result in a lot more people jumping off boats.

The Dane County sheriff's statement, "Anytime you leave your boat, have access to a personal flotation device" is another not-quite-brilliant, canned comment which they're trained to provide. When you jump off a boat, you already have a flotation device: the boat. Of course, poor swimmers should also have flotables in the water with them.

Having swum off Hoofer boats many times myself, I can attest that entering the water from a moving boat and spinning around underwater can be extremely disorienting. Even very good swimmers should exercise caution. If you ever try that, wait until you stop spinning, relax, and don't exhale. Your body will orient itself and reveal which way is up. Most but not all people will also start to float slowly toward the surface (depends on your BMI). You can usually but not always also figure out which way is up by the light, but algae scatters sunlight underwater. The one thing you don't want to do is swim deeper, thinking that you're swimming toward the surface. That may sound dumb, but it's not hard to do.

If you're skippering a boat when someone jumps off, stop the boat immediately and throw your throwable(s). And don't rush to get back to the exact spot or you might run him/her over. This is for summer on Lake Mendota; in cold water or on big water, use the standard MOB procedure.

I for one would not recommend jumping off a moving boat at night. It can be very hard to figure out which way is up before your air runs out. Night swimming off anchored boats is much safer.

The first Hoofer Sailing death?

On Saturday, a man jumped off a Hoofer boat and disappeared. Did he actually drown..? (read the breaking news story here.)

Or is it perhaps a faked death, like in the movies where someone just wants to disappear..?

Stay tuned.

June 18 UPDATE: There have been some good comments, but on principal, we don't like to modify posts or edit their content once they're made. The bit about someone perhaps wanting to disappear was not intended to diminish the seriousness of a drowning.