Idea for C-Cup

There's no additional news yet on the recent tragedy, and our previous post has pretty much been speculated to death, so here's an idea: Make Commodore's Cup a special event in honor of Yu Chen and as a kind of memorial to the recent tragedy.

The club could (and probably should) print up t-shirts with Yu's portrait, or at least his name. Maybe a nice shot of a windsurfer with text below or something like that, plus something that says C-Cup '17. Yes there was the memorial gathering, but that doesn't mean we can't do this too. It would reach a bigger audience and could also serve to bring awareness of the dangers inherent in sailing and other sports. If we could get news coverage, the event might also help to encourage a proper investigation into the tragedy (that should be happening already).

If you go to images.google.com and type "windsurfer art", you get some nice images that could easily be adapted for Hoofers. Photoshopping a good photo taken on Lake Mendota would also be an option, e.g. using one of the artistic filters. We're not art students but there are people in the club who are.

This would work best if club leaders like the idea and decide to go with it, but it doesn't necessarily require their participation. The idea was suggested by a commenter on our previous post.

Time's a wasting.

Another Hoofer death

JUNE 21 UPDATE: Here's another article on the incident. It begins, "The tragic death of a skilled windsurfer last month in a collision with a rescue boat on Lake Mendota turned a spotlight on the University of Wisconsin Lifesaving Station. The rescues performed by the station’s lifesaving crews, on the other hand, typically go unnoticed." Is the Cap Times suggesting that death by motorboat doesn't warrant so much attention or that it's a fair trade-off given all the "rescues" they perform..? In either case, we emphasize that there are one or two scenarios where it may not have been entirely the rescue boat's fault.

JUNE 14 UPDATE: More info here. The DNR and UW are refusing to release investigatory data and video and have refused to allow examination of the boat. Incredibly, the boat has apparently been put back into service already, presumably so active use will wash off whatever evidence remains. Almost sounds like corrupt public officials trying to protect themselves from liability.

JUNE 13 UPDATE: More details are trickling in about Yu Chen's death. Apparently he was run over by the "rescue" boat from behind, which seems to suggest that the motorboat crew were indeed at fault in this tragedy. Chen's family has retained an attorney to sue the crap out of the UW. WARNING—the above link gives some fairly graphic details.

JUNE 5—We hoped to have more details on the investigation by now, but here are the basics.

Last Wednesday, Yu Chen, a popular Hoofer sailor and former instructor, and a good friend, was killed by the Hoofer/UW lifesaving boat. That would be the 31 foot twin-screw "rescue" boat which weighs in at about 8,700 lbs. Yu together with his board probably weighed about 180.

The clowns at the Badger Herald worded it as follows: "a 43 year old man was killed after colliding with" the UW lifesaving boat. That makes it sound like Yu ran into the motorboat! What it should say is: "after being hit by the UW lifesaving boat". Harvey knows very well that sailboards have right-of-way over motorboats. (And now the Herald staff know too.)

The accident occurred around 5:45 PM. How is that possible? Evidently something was impairing the rescue staff's ability to navigate. Sunset is 8:32 PM now, so the sun couldn't have been in their eyes. Maybe Yu was in the water at the time and thus not as visible, but that's no excuse either. There simply is no excuse.

"UW lifesaving" has become "UW Lifetaking".

UPDATED JUNE 8.

Another T-10?

With the season fast approaching, the club has just acquired a new toy for the boys (and for the girls too, of course). Speaking of beautiful ladies, on the right is a photo looking up under the poopdeck of our newest keelboat, Siege. It is a Tartan-10 donated by Glen Gordon, an avid sailor and racer down in Waukegan, IL. Word is that the donation isn't official yet but will be soon. Even when formalized, boat donations often don't stick around Hoofers for long, either being sold off cheap to preferred club members or stored on the farm until they can be taken as a tax write-off.

The Tartan-10 is a bit of a funky design. It has a fractional rig with a small chute, the cabin top is flush with the deck (and thus disorienting for drunk people), and the cabin has zero headroom. That is to say, it ain't no cruiser. But then, alcohol is now verboten (pronounced: for boatin') anyway, right? On the plus side, the T-10 has a wide transom making it very stable downwind. Some consider the feel of a T-10 to be more like a J-24 than a typical large keelboat. It is lightweight (~7000 lbs) though not an ultralight.

One or two T-10's have been donated in the past and were not kept by the club, having been deemed less than ideal for the keelboat program. However, given the recent losses of several Hoofer keelboats, we can probably use another one. Even when we do keep donated boats, they often don't last very long. Most end their lives as victims of sailing incompetence or otherwise damaged beyond repair (e.g. Decoy, Toy Boat, Maria...). It's a miracle that Soma is still sailing, or hopefully will be. But hey, if a big guy like Glen can sail a T-10 for years without falling through the cabin top, maybe we can too!

Guthier Day

Today is Earth Day, a time for everyone to pause and consider what they can do as individuals to help the environment. For instance, recycling, using less plastic, biking instead of driving, rowing out to the keelboats instead of taking the motorboat, eating less meat (meat production is inefficient), protesting nuclear power, protesting monkey abuse at the UW Primate Center, protesting child abuse (we're all children of the Earth), and so on.

Earth Day also provides a chance to pause and appreciate the beauty of the natural world. Lake Mendota, for instance. It's pretty right now--before the iridescent slime of summer arrives like a spilt tanker of green paint. The photo above is a good example of why we need Earth Day. It shows the new Union parking garage under construction. Note how it will almost completely block the view of the lake from Langdon Street! Alas, it would have cost more to make it entirely underground. What's worse, the new enlarged garage will encourage more driving and less walking and biking. The planners/perpetrators must have been high when they designed and approved this thing.

And yet, Union management claim that the Wis. Union is "green"! Let's try to make sure Hoofers at least is as green as possible. Beer drinking is green because beer is a natural product of, um, plants and stuff. Happy Earth Day!

Living the lie

The annual instructor hiring charade is finally over with. Were you "selected" (or not)..? Someone recently complained to me, i.e. someone who applied to instruct but wasn't selected, er, hired. S/he is a very good sailor, personable, loves to sail and windsurf, and s/he enjoys alcohol (the main critera for "selection"). Yet, s/he wasn't approved and won't be allowed to instruct even though s/he applied as a volunteer

If you think applications are evaluated fairly, they're not. Returning party buddies, er, instructors, get priority--even though teaching sailing at HSC isn't intended as a job but is part of one's overall education. The club's home page states explicitly (and correctly) that instructing is "the best way to become a better sailor". And yet, they refuse to let qualified, enthusiastic individuals teach lessons even as unpaid volunteers!?

It is human nature to try to build and maintain a comforting world view. Nietzsche explained this using the concept of illusion vs. reality. In a vernacular, it's known as "living the lie". To make existence bearable, our brains reject ideas that conflict with our preferred world-view, regardless of how accurate that view may be. The fact that Hoofers is run by sleazeballs is an unpleasant reality that is difficult to accept. We want desperately to believe that Hoofers is a nice place where everybody can learn in happiness and be treated fairly.

Most people are afraid to complain, reasoning (and rightly so) that if they do, they might suffer even greater abuses. The Japanese have an adage for this: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down". Unfortunately the problem isn't confined to Japan. It exists wherever some people are given arbitrary authority over others. The crooks in charge of hiring aren't 100% at fault because it's the system that facilitates unfair access to resources and perks. There simply is no incentive to treat general club members, i.e. paying customers equally.

Baseball, sailing, and UW

In honor of the opening of spring training (and the lack of March sailing news), we digress to thoughts on some related topics. We already pointed out some of the drawbacks to living in Wisconsin, but there is a more deep-seated and insidious problem here--an exploitative philosophy that devalues the state and its population.

The Milwaukee Brewers typify this philosophy. Where but WI would record numbers of suckers pay religiously to see a team that has never won a championship and never will? The Brewers are in perpetual "rebuilding" mode, which is double talk used by scum bags who have no intention of ever fielding a winning team. They know it's enough to field a serviceable team because most WI fans are gullible and believe what they're told. Like, "We're rebuilding."

The running excuse for Milwaukee's 47 years of mediocrity is that it's a small market team that can't compete with the deep pockets in New York and L.A., but that's b.s. St. Louis is a smaller city than Milwaukee, yet somehow manages to win the World Series almost every other year! Need more evidence? The Brewers released Chris Carter, the 2016 home run champion, this offseason--a dumbfounding move never before committed by any major league team in the history of the sport! Who releases the home run champion?! Lest you think that was a fluke, last year the Brewers released Khris Davis, who proceeded to hit 42 home runs in 2016 for the Oakland A's. Oh, right, they're rebuilding...

If ever a baseball team shat on its fans, this was it. The modus operandi in Milwaukee is: "Heey... this guy is really good! Let's get rid of him." That the Brewers can put one over on WI fans year after year says something about the intelligence of those fans. There may be other factors at work too. Over the past three+ decades, Milwaukee has plummeted from the 16th largest U.S. city to 31st, due in part to white flight, and is now one of the most segregated cities in Amerika.

One thing is certain: Too many members of the UW-Madison community are getting fubar'd instead of educated or enlightened. UW's supposed motto of "sifting and winnowing" is another sucker play--a chronic joke perpetrated on state residents by University of Wisconsin administrators, just as Brewers' management is pulling the wool over the eyes of the state's baseball fans.