Jeff and Sarra Golden

Review of Jacksonville Rudder Club

Unless you are interested exclusively in small sai...

Unless you are interested exclusively in small sailboat racing, I would never recommend this club to anyone interested in learning to sail or who values diversity and open-mindedness. In my family's brief experience attending several events and enrolling in their classes, including a week of their youth summer camp, we experienced antisemitic comments ("Jews all live together in the walled and gated community on San Jose Blvd." and "Jews have always segregated themselves from the community"), bullying and violence suffered by our 8 year old daughter, and unsafe sailing instruction.

On the first day of camp our daughter was bullied by an older boy who eventually swung a chair at her and struck her in the forehead. The camp supervisor failed to call and notify us despite a clear bruise and bump on her head. On day two she was placed on a small sailboat with a older girl who verbally bullied her and refused to let her sail the boat. I spoke with the camp supervisor who assured me that the offending girl would be kept away. Two days later the offensive girl was again placed in the same boat with our daughter who was pushed down in the boat and threatened with further physical violence. When this was reported both girls were barred from sailing for the rest of the day. Every afternoon when I picked up my daughter I watched the youth "counselors (all teenagers) sit in the air conditioned veranda playing on cell phones while the youth did nothing outside in the heat.

I enrolled in an adult 3-day sailing class at The Rudder Club last summer. I have absolutely no interest in racing a sailboat and told them the same. My interest was learning to handle very small craft like my daughter was going to be taught on. I was assured that the class was basic instruction on small craft sailboats and not racing. The class was not provided the required reading material to learn basic terminology until the first hour of the class and within two hours we were placed in boats on the water. Mind you, most of these students had no experience sailing. The instructor, from a powerboat, barked commands at students using nautical terms introduced to them only an hour or two earlier. Within four hours the instructor was pushing students to race with each other and bring their boats within a few feet of each other to pass. One student was struck by the boom as a result of this fast-paced and poor instruction. The instruction was blatantly dangerous and I refused to continue with the class after seeing these incidents. Of course, they refused to issue a refund for anything.