Park Street Cultural Tour

The Wisconsin Union: Hoofer Outdoor Program and Lifesaving Station

800 Langdon Street

If you’ve ever driven down or up Park St. you’ve probably never seen Hoofers. Do you know why? It’s because technically, it’s not even on Park Street . . . It’s under it!

Hoofers does many activities, but the four they do at that building are wind surfing, sailing, kayaking, and canoeing. But the thing they are most well-known for is the sailing. Hoofers sails . . . a lot! Hoofers has many, many boats. They even make some.
–Sam R.

They have a thousand members and sixty to seventy people go sailing a day. But all at different times. And these members are at any age. Mostly college students here but they have kids who are members, seventy years and older, even dogs are members!
–Anna

We were told what the rescue boat does and how it works. Also we learned how to tie a figure eight knot.

We saw two boats getting worked on, one that was almost finished and one that just came in. The one that they were just about done with had a nice coat of new paint and looked almost new. The boat that just came in was really ratty looking. It had paint flakes peeling everywhere and most of the top had no paint.

The third station was to practice sailing on land. Two people got into a boat at a time and spent about three minutes practicing moving the boat and the sail. When you turned, the sail moved so you had to duck your head when the boom came towards you. It was a very small boat, but it gave you the basics of sailing.
–Nikki

They use flags for signals. Blue flags mean strong winds. Yellow flags mean there could be a storm, so boats have to say by a line. A red flag means there is a storm and all Hoofer members have to come back to land.
–Chou

They have a steam whistle to blow whenever there is a storm coming up. When they think it’s a storm they blow it twice or if they have enough steam, three times. They also blow it once to warn sailors it’s an hour to sunset so that gives them time to get their boat back to shore before dark.

The Tech [boat] . . . is a really fast boat good for races, a lot of people can ride in them at once, maybe eight to ten people and of course a dog or two.
–Max

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