Hoofer Sailing Club

★★★★★Mona Jalal

Christine Seeley was very helpful regarding accommodations of my last minute joining a group of glow in the dark kayaking attending. I was very impressive the she had brought for us solar-powered lanterns. There were also 4 more guides helping our group along a 2 miles kayaking tour out and back to picnic point. It was truly a unique experience. $30 covered a single kayak rental, headlamp, lantern, paddle, and life jacket.

★★★William Stephenson

TLDR: Great program, but lack of plan for getting experienced sailors on the water is very frustrating I appreciate what this club does, but as someone who has sailed a long time before joining this club my experience with trying to get out onto the water has been frustrating at best. Ever since joining I've been chasing around trying to figure out the fastest way to get out onto the water, which has overall taken way way too long. The first thing I did was talk to the hoofers front desk, who while friendly, weren't entirely sure of what I should do, noting that my schedule didn't work to make the one scheduled intro class (ground school) on saturdays. They did put me in contact with somebody who might be able to arrange a way for me to get ground school done, but said person didn't respond for over a week and then wasn't able to help. After that, I took one of my free days to try and find any instructor who might be able to help out. I eventually found someone who could give me the gist of ground school, which took all of 20 minutes noting that I am an experienced sailor and didn't need to be taught the basics of sailing. While I really appreciate said instructor being so accomodating, it made me a bit confused why it took so long to have it done when I could have done it the first day I went to the desk. After completing ground school I wanted to get out onto the water. I personally wanted to sail the lasers, which are a boat I have sailed a lot. The front desk told me that to get to sail the laser, I would have to take multiple classes on other boats and a class on the lasers before I could take one out, which seemed like way too much run-around if you have already learned what is in the classes. The instructor who did my ground school told me to contact the "fleet captain" for the lasers, which I did and got no response from. Finally, on another of my rare free days I went down and met the commodore of the program by chance who told me that he could change my rating in the system. As of writing this review, this hasn't happened yet but I assume it will happen in the next day. In reality, the process should have taken me one day to get done. There should have been at least one person who could've done ground school and be able to get me on the water within 24 hours. It took me nearly 4 weeks to get to the point I am now. I completely understand the idea of being cautious towards giving people ratings, and also that the program isn't staffed in a way that means someone is always free to help out. However, by going through this I know it should've been possible to get through this in way less time than I did. Again, I appreciate the idea of giving people an easy way to learn how to sail and putting resources towards it. I work for a non-profit community sailing center myself. I just wish that there was a better worked plan on how to get new members with sailing experience out on the water asap.

★★★★★Andrea Mitchell

Sailing is amazing and this is the best way to learn! Cant believe how affordable it is too.

★Briana Reilley

Not a place you want your children involved with. Do not let your kids go here if they are "Different" or "Differently abled". No tolerance for special needs, no tolerance for different races.

★★★★★Erik Saynisch

Excellent! You will not find a better cost to value ratio in terms of confidence building, exercise, community, and sheer joy than in the Hoofers Sailing Club.