Hoofers: A dominance hierarchy

With Commodore's Cup approaching, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on past commodores and some of their achievements.

It's common knowledge that former commodore Carl Stenbol met his future wife in Hoofers. Lots of commodores and instructors meet their future mates in Hoofers. From the 75th Anniversary anecdotes:

Stenbol met Dawn at a Hoofer Kickoff late 1980’s, when Carl picked her out of a membership signup line and announced she had won a free cruise on Maria (Hoofer heavy keelboat) for being the 1000th member. It wasn’t even close to the truth but it gained Carl his first date with his future wife. Married August 1992, at their wedding we drank the Union out of Mount Gay Rum. The current instruction program at Hoofers (with paid instructors, instructor training, standard lesson content, reviews) was pretty much all built by Carl – before Carl, instruction was volunteer and haphazard.

A rum fest, wow... wish I could have been there. Alas, I can only imagine what the old days must have been like.

Anyway, it's a cute anecdote, but think about what it says: The first thing Carl ever said to his future wife was a deceit. Of course, we all tell white lies from time to time. I did it myself once, although it was more the trivial variety, e.g. "Didn't I see you at Sammy's party last week..?" Not a terribly clever line, but all I could muster on a hangover, and it worked--it got me a date!

But when you're in a position of authority, then you can really take advantage (more on that in a forthcoming post). Was it an abuse by Stenbol? It was someone taking advantage of his position. The point is, practically no one else in Hoofers would be in a position to do that. Nor is it only white lies that are told in Hoofers. Some people deliberately tell blatant, malicious lies to attack people they don't like.

The second thing Carl did was to start building a stronger caste system in HSC. Paid instruction created a vested interest in hanging on to your job which, in turn, created an incentive to hire your buddies in place of more qualified individuals. No longer was everyone expected to teach others in a club environment. Now it was us (paid "staff") and them (payers). A natural evolution of the elevated status enjoyed by instructors is the incentive to water down the requirements for ratings, at least for insiders. Hence "instructor ratings weekend" and "fast-tracking". HSC instructors pretend to know what they're doing, but many are incompetent (LINK2, LINK3, LINK4, LINK5, LINK6, LINK7, LINK8, LINK9).

Such shenanigans by Stenbol and other club "leaders" highlights the fact that HSC is now a club within the club. That is, the real club consists exclusively of club officers and instructors. The rest of you are just cattle, here to be milked for cash (and sex). This model works, more or less, because so many around the UW are used to paying for instruction.

The easy-ratings-for-instructors policy has had serious repercussions including the death of a passenger in 2015 caused by a skipper who got her rating from her boyfriend after a single lesson. Makes you wonder if it was even a sailing lesson.

Feel free to share more anecdotes, but remember that personal names are strongly discouraged except when discussing state of Wisconsin (e.g. Hoofer) employees or former employees.

In a forthcoming post, we'll look at other commodores and Hoofer employees who used their position to pursue a member of the opposite sex, not always successfully.

And you thought Hoofers only taught sailing?

The Hoofer Sailing Club, established in 1939, is a collection of students and community members working together an unsupervised sociology experiment authorized by the Wisconsin Union, UW-Madison. Here you can learn the arts of manipulation, how to slander people to advance your own position or harm rivals, how to "cook the books", and so on.

As a paying "club member", you won't actually become a club member--you'll be a customer, but that's okay (for us). We are the instructors and club officers who have been selected for our superior party skills and/or alcohol tolerance.* Fortunately (for us), we have immunity from prosecution should you be injured and want to sue. People shouldn't be held responsible for their actions if they're state employees, right?

Luckily for you, sailing is safer than rock climbing or bungee jumping, but injuries are to be expected. In the past, we've had students get hit in the head by the boom--hundreds of times, on various types of boat, with some of those resulting in concussions and permanent injury. Do a google search for "flying jibe" if you want to learn more. Since 2015, there have been two deaths in Hoofer Sailing. One was caused by an instructor, the other by the UW Rescue service. But hey, hundreds of other people went out sailing and didn't get killed. Those are pretty good odds, right?

NOTE that the club's official site falsely advertises many aspects of "club" membership. For instance, the site states that:

1. you'll be joining a "club". This implies you'll have equal say, standing, comparable benefits, or something like that, but nothing could be further from the truth. You'll be a customer, giving money to other individuals who have lots of benefits, none of which you will have.

2. That you can "teach others to sail". In fact, you are not allowed** to teach anyone how to sail unless formally approved as a Hoofer instructor! If you try it, you'll be kicked out of the club, and we'll keep your money.

3. That you can get your deposit back. Good luck with that because Hoofer employees actively scheme how to keep customers (paying club members) from getting their deposits back^†.

4. That HSC is a social organization where you can make great new friends. Mostly that's for instructors and club officers--the real club--who take advantage of their positions in every way possible. If you're just a plebe (a customer), heh, good luck impressing anyone in a dinghy or as crew on a keelboat. If you can somehow manage to become commodore, you can really take advantage and get the girls (more on that in our next post).

5. Most people who join only want to take a few lessons. That's absurd. Most people want to take many more, at least initially, but either the lessons they want are always full, or they get scared away (see above). The real club (instructors+BOC) love those people because we get to keep their $200 membership fee!


6. That Hoofers doesn't discriminate. Unfortunately, the club does discriminate illegally. For one example, see the comments here.

So join Hoofers now! Just don't sign up for sailing--try kayaking, SCUBA, or something else instead. Better yet, get the heck out of Madison this summer and go see the world!

*Alcohol has been officially banned on board Hoofer boats since 2015, although there's no law against getting hammered on shore and then going sailing. Nor has the no-alcohol policy stopped some club leaders and instructors from taking beer and liquor on board.
**Hoofer Sailing has been changing web URLs, removing documents, sanitizing BOC minutes, and so on, perhaps to cover their tracks. That is how crooks operate. The link in #2 above is to the 2014 Ground School Manual--the latest that's online as of the date of this post (which alone should tell you something). As of June 2019, the club's official manual site has removed all manuals, ostensibly to be revised (why didn't we do this in the off-season??). If the above link to the 2014 GS Manual becomes disabled, let us know and we'll post a copy someplace.
†Not all BOC and instructors are criminals, but too many are.