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.

Sailing dangerously

For those who haven't already heard about it, a Saturday race in the Gulf off Alabama encountered a squall with gusts of "up to 70 mph". That's the typical force of a thunderstorm on Lake Mendota, the only difference being that waves don't build up on Mendota. On the Gulf, these sailors encountered "10 ft" waves--in 23 foot boats. Not a good combo even for experienced sailors. Of course, when you're in a 23 ft. boat, just about anything looks like a ten foot wave.

Imagine if last year's spring break cruisers had encountered such a storm. You can bet the damage would have been a lot more than $10k. We're still waiting on the damage reports from this year's "Hoofer-YachtXP" cruise.

The XP factor

Why isn't HSC doing another spring break cruise this year? That's explained in our previous post. There have been other rumours, though, so maybe we shouldn't all have skipped all of the BOC meetings over break (Mike?)... there is a spring break cruise this year after all. Only, it's not an official Hoofers trip.

Why not? Because Hoofers can't or doesn't feel competent to run them anymore. Instead, a new organization, er, website has popped up (and a klunky one at that). All it is is a website created by JustinC last fall as a front for Greg Bammel to continue "Hoofer" spring break cruises in spite of the UW's (or the Union's) ban on them or refusal to approve or underwrite them. An LLC (limited liability company, as in, it's your fault not mine), YachtXP claims that it has 'partnered' with Hoofers to run another spring break cruise (despite the $10,000 in damages done last year). Although their website, too, claims sponsorship by HSC, the whole thing is just a way of getting around any prohibitions on further cruises. Why else wouldn't HSC organize and run the trip itself?

Hey, we're adults and we can flip off the UW and go sail in Florida if we want to, and get sh*t-faced too if we're over 18, er, 21.

How about this line in the terms and conditions: Any damages to YachtXP vessels may be charged directly to your credit card.

Evidently the organizers (hi Greg!) will be collecting credit card numbers before cast-off. What if I didn't cause the damage and it was the incompetent skipper's fault..? I think YachtXP derives its name from the fact that you'll need a PC running Windows XP (or Windows 7) to calculate all the damages come next April.

Bahamas 2015?

Sign up now for Hoofer Sailing Club's 2015 Spring Break cruise!

Just kidding. There will be no club cruise this year due to the big screw-up last year. The fellas pictured at right are mostly to blame, some more than others (Hi Greg!). Collectively they and their crews did over $10,000 in damages to the charter boats last spring (March '14). As a result, the University has once again disallowed HSC club-sponsored cruises in Florida or anyplace else--indefinitely. THANKS, GUYZ.

It is sad that despite the presence of some truly expert sailors in the club, skippers were chosen largely based on their party reputation (hi Doug!) and on how much liquor they can hold (hi everyone!). Naturally, the party captains' party buddies were the first to sign up for the cruise, and you can imagine the rest. See this post for details on some of the damage done to the four boats last year.

It's doubly frustrating/amusing/depressing given that some club leaders worked so hard to get spring break cruises going again after a 20 year hiatus. That long absence was due also to UW Risk Management prohibiting club-sponsored cruises after the disaster in 1993 where major damage was done to several boats, including shredded mainsails, a burnt out engine, a punctured hull, lost equipment, etc. (Yeah, yeah, we know, that time it was the storm of the century, but what does that say about your seamanship..?)

The new Hoofer mantra might be: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't sail a charter yacht in a drunken stupor. Well, maybe once every 20 years.

WHO is Ian Walter?

And why is he so afraid? His infosheet displayed in Memorial Union shows Bucky Badger, not Ian Walter.

Is somebody after him..? Does he owe money to the syndicate? We don't know. All we know is that his flyer outside the restrooms doesn't show his photo while everyone else's does. That's silly because all anyone has to do to see Ian is go here: http://hoofersailing.org/?q=node/156

Hmm... that doesn't really look like Ian either.

The flyer concludes with "Ian is the model of what should be expected from any leader." As in, hiding his face..? Not the norm for HSC leaders to be sure.

NOTE: Due to the unusually early end to the sailing season due to the horrific weather, this post is the first in a series of employee profiles that will continue until the weather improves.