Overpaid

FEB 22 UPDATE: We've switched to embedded comments so it's easier to reply to particular comments, and this will allow sub-threads on those topics too (and possibly make it easier to ignore certain other comments). Let's see how this works.

A comment on our previous post inspired us to do a little research. Here's what your favorite (or least favorite) Hoofer staffer gets paid per annum:

• Outdoor Programs Dir. Joe Webb: $52,570
• WUD Cultmaster Jim Rogers: $47,922
• Hoofer Advoosigator Dave Elsmo: $46,205
• Director of Kiddies Susan Dibbell: $121,899
• Wis. Union Führer Mark Guthier: $158,500

That last one is almost eighty dollars an hour--to sit in his office on the fifth floor and come up with new ways to waste money. For reference, a full professor makes around $100K, although that can vary somewhat.

A sailing instructor? $10/hr, give or take a buck (which would translate to $20K/year if full time were possible)--to go out and risk our lives, get sunburned, cut, bruised, yelled at, and hammered. We do it all for a fraction of what the office minions make. We might as well be volunteering.

And do we really need an advoosigator? Hoofer Sailing always managed itself in the past. Why pay one individual $46K/year to tell us to be sure to tie our shoe laces? As far as Jim's returning as advoosigator, that's unlikely, but not because it would be a pay cut. As of 2010 Jim was making a cool $46K--about what he's making now (that's what is meant by stag-nant wages). There just isn't a whole lot of opportunity for advancement at the Wis. Union, unless you aspire to become Union director, which in fact is Jim's stated goal. (are you grooming him yet, Mark?)

Another comment questioned the need for a Head of Instruction. Alas, someone has to organize and schedule lessons, and a rotation, like we have for security, would be a mess IMHO. But that doesn't mean HOI has to be a full time position.

Note that the above are 2017 salaries, so they've probably all creeped up a few bucks since then.

Why we love summer (and hate Wisconsin the rest of the time)

JAN 29 UPDATE: Okay, this has to be a first--two days of classes cancelled in a block:

UW cancels classes through noon Thursday

I'm going ice skating! Let's have a snowball fight! Er, holy crap it's too cold out... How can there even be classes this afternoon? (there are)

Friday night's sailing weather recap:



That's -29 degrees celsius.

Sailing seems awfully far away right now, even sitting here in the lounge writing this. It's too cold to even go ice sailing, although there is plenty of ice out there.

'Nuf said.

We failed = end of blog?

Nah. This blog will probably outlive you (provided Google does). But we did fail to deter construction of the new "marina" which is now well underway. We took an interest too late, as did many others, even as the promoters worked quietly to make big changes. The technocrats, the hacks, the self-serving administrators planned and schemed and then unleashed their project when they knew it would be too late to stop it.

That's how such people operate--they do preliminary studies, make sure they have the support of key people, line up at least one big donor (to draw others in), and handle doubters with half-truths and misdirection, all with as little publicity as possible. Always the driving motivation is narcissistic--vanity, ego, self-enrichment (along with a bit of idiocy in this case, to waste $5 million re-dressing the Hoofer lakefront).

***Naming recognition opportunities still available*** :)

Do you think it's not narcissism? The new "marina" will have big bronze plaques proudly displaying the names of big donors, just like the old parking lot-cum-Alumni Park is dotted with huge, vain placards. If you can read this page in its entirety without barfing, you should win a roll of Tums. Try it, it's not that long. And how about the "Badger Pride Wall"... Does anyone really call it that?? Pride, the most egregious of the Seven Deadly Sins--sprayed in your face. I'm not religious, but I find the use of pride as a driving motivation disgusting. It's what motivates managers to remodel things that don't need remodeling.

As for Alumni Park's supposed raison d'être--celebrating the "Wisconsin Idea"--that philosophy has become an inside joke, along with its corollary of "sifting and winnowing." In the 21st century, the UW teaches students to grab whatever they can, to abuse those they can abuse, and to lie about it afterward--and to take pride in getting away with it. This isn't just an outgrowth of the creeping xenophobia at the UW; it is a sea change in the basic philosophy that governs the university.

Metaphorically speaking, UW-Madison is an aging, pimped-up East European whore lathered in makeup, carrying pepper spray and various diseases. Administrators prefer this to a less-glamorous-but-honest-persona because the former naturally draws more notice, more funding, more paying students, more gullible faculty, and so on. It works because people tend to believe what they hear, a fundamental flaw in human nature that lets the few prey on the many. Once a person realizes s/he may have been duped, most don't want to dig any further for fear they won't like what they find.

But hey, hopefully by July we'll have some new piers! Apologies to the poor muskrats who called the old piers home.

HSC's fleet of brand new 35 ft yachts

EDITORIAL—As the employees talk up the new "marina," details from super-advocate Mills Botham, skewed somewhat to make the whole thing seem more utopian, can be found here:

http://hoofersailing.org/?q=tongfamilymarina

We put "marina" in quotes because Hoofer Sailing Club is not a marina. It's a fleet of boats with volunteers maintaining them, teaching each other how to sail, and generally having fun. At least, that was the vision, and we almost achieved it. The reality is that with more and more money being funneled through HSC, it was destined to be corrupt. Jim Rogers got the balls rolling by pushing hard for more paid instruction and a milkable cash cow (the Youth Program) as HOI. Then came the big remodeling in 2013, and now a $5 million "marina." Certain individuals have done a lot to help ruin things over the years. Nate Salowitz and Ras grabbing control of the keelboats in 2001, and then Chris Frye and Justin Cherniak (and others) fighting for paid keelboat instruction circa 2009, among other things.

Maybe instruction would suffer a bit if it were all volunteer--not that it would really matter in a club of enthusiasts eager to help each other learn. Besides, you learn by teaching too, so it is a natural progression from student to instructor. That's in the absence of corrupting cash. As it is, instruction is mediocre despite being mostly paid. Way too many people are treating it as a summer job, and spreading that infective meme.

Speaking of money, the "marina" website linked above emphasizes that "No taxpayer dollars are being used for this project."

So what? It's still a horrific waste of money to spend $4.8 million tearing apart the lakefront and then rebuilding it, when there are so many more pressing needs for funding. Harassment and sensitivity training for Wis. Union managers, for example, and counseling and extended psychiatric treatment for some of them. A few [ex-] Hoofer employees could use professional help too. And $1M wouldn't be too much to put into escrow for lawsuits and other claims, e.g. yachts damaged in Florida. Extra pay to retain highly qualified professors is also a big issue right now at UW-Madison as many are fleeing to other schools.

What else could $4.8M buy? How about this for kicks:

35 brand new Beneteau Oceanis 35' yachts
15 brand new Beneteau 46's, fully loaded(!)
45 brand new Catalina 34's
500 used J/24's
50,000 half-barrels of beer (give or take)

Three dozen brand new oceangoing yachts! Instead, we get some new piers of questionable integrity and a strip of grass where the Techs are now. How sick is that? Don't think for a second that no one is getting a kickback on this deal.

Sam Kleppe's bad day

Some thoughts on the partial(?) sheriff's report posted by a commenter on our previous post. (Thanx.) There are no huge revelations, and all the gory stuff is blacked out, but a couple of things jump out:

1. Apparently Yu Chen was indeed under sail and not down in the water when the collision occurred. With very few other boats around at the time, he should have stuck out like a cherry on a cream pie. Yeah it's tough to see out of that Rescue boat due to the high bow when planing, the angled windshield, etc, but in the end, a motorboat can only hit a sailboat if the motorboater does something wrong.

2. One disturbing comment that might indicate a defect in motorboat driver training says they look mainly to the right (p. 34) because motorboats coming from that direction have right of way. Yu Chen approached from their left (see page 9).

3. Chris Kleppe declined to have his blood tested after the incident, and while Sam Kleppe and Bill Stebbins submitted to blood tests, their results are redacted in the report. That doesn't look good. If they were clean, then the sheriff sure didn't do them a favor by blacking that out.

One can blame Yu Chen for not looking where he was going, but the report says he was coming from the east, and it was late afternoon, so he was looking straight into the sun--and the sun was not in the motorboat driver's eyes. And of course, sailboats have right-of-way. Were there reflections off the waves to the east..? Probably, but if visibility was so poor, then Harvey should have slowed down.

In a big motorboat on Lake Mendota, you are obligated to be aware of what's around you at all times and how fast any other craft are moving. That's stating the obvious, and yet, it obviously needs to be stated. Even while skippering Spray on windy days, I'm often uncomfortable when other boats are around because if we hit one, we could do serious damage. So, I make sure there is no chance of intercepting any other boats. Of course, a sailboarder could hit us if he wanted to because he's much faster, but the Rescue motorboat typically goes 4-5 times as fast as Spray. Nor do they have a headsail to interfere with visibility.

The report does not disprove the theory that Yu Chen was hotdogging, e.g. swinging by Harvey to wave hello. Maybe Yu was headed north, then swung west to approach them, and meanwhile, they turned their attention to the west, thinking he was well clear of them. Yu misjudged their speed, or his own, and.... However, this scenario seems unlikely because then he would have been well aware of where the motorboat was. In any case, if a motorboat driver is exercising due care, it should be impossible for him to hit a sailor. If one is on a collision course or deliberately trying to intercept the motorboat, the driver must change course or drop speed.

The most startling item in the report may be where Sam says they'd been cruising along for 3-4 minutes when suddenly he saw a windsurfer "three feet off the bow."

Even on Spray, you wouldn't want to find yourself three feet off the bow of an 8,000 lb motorboat doing 25 knots.

Bad Seeds

Since the previous discussion has drifted away from the marina to more general Hoofer concerns, including the direction/ deteriotion of the Club and the issue of declining lessons and ratings, we'll throw in our two cents.

Some commenters were correct that the database can be examined by instructors and BOC for all sorts of data, including ratings (see edited database entry at right). Yet, despite the fact that some 100+ individuals can spend their nights looking through the database, downloading it, and shoving it up each other's arses, that data is not available to the public. Why? because some of it is supposedly protected by FERPA as part of students' educational records. Some of it, mind you, not all of it, but data for non-students isn't released either.

Hiding behind FERPA allows Hoofers and the UW to hide malfeasance such as ratings that were not earned, ratings that disappeared (e.g. were removed maliciously), libelous comments by instructors, damning statistics, etc. Greater transparency would benefit the vast majority, maybe even Hoofers itself; only those individuals who got their ratings on the sly and a few others who are up to no good benefit from hiding this data. Are sailing lessons in a public club part of one's educational record? They don't seem like the same thing as grades you receive in class, which definitely are not public record.

For those unfamiliar, the image above is one person's entry from the database, with personal info & details altered so the individual can't be identified. Notice the comments and ratings sections (also changed to protect the guilty). The info isn't always 100% complete but can generally be used to tally ratings.

Having personal info in there, e.g. phone number and address, also allows unscrupulous male instructors & BOC to stalk cute female club members, like a UWPD police captain did a couple of years ago to a terrified woman using a restricted law enforcement database. And he's just the one they caught--other cops undoubtedly do the same thing and get away with it. If police officers are willing to do that, you can bet Hoofer employees are too. Is there even a rule against a male instructor using the database to track down a girl he'd like to jump..?

No wonder certain webmasters and others pushed to have everyone's photo and personal info in a big database. If I were an undergraduate woman, I certainly wouldn't provide my address when I join HSC. That is, if someone managed to talk me into joining in the first place.