Well…that title should read mostly “Rock” – but we did roll a lot of bushes from alongside our race course away this past weeked. Ted, David, Tim, Alan, and myself (Jake) left the boats at home and packed the trucks with chainsaws, shovels, picks, and weed eaters and redefined our landscape at the Hartness Pond. We cleared all the shrubs from in front of the course so it’s now possible to walk the entire course, staying close to your boat, from A-pin to C-mark. We also are fortunate to have the convenience of a large birch at one end of the course, and a young, but healthy and fast growing pear tree at the other end of the course…will make a great shady parking spot for our judges during bigger events.
Oh, and by the way, it was a good thing we had established a policy to leave the boats at home because there was a magnificent breeze blowing down the lake all day. We would not have gotten anything done had we brought boats.
We also got a good start on our mini-launch “harbor”. Our idea is to dig out a trapezoid shaped channel up to the high-water line and shore it up with used rail-road ties. This will allow launch boats without having to get wet and accommodate the varying lake level that is very rain dependent. It will be nice for a quick evening sail after work in the winter and a requisite for a regatta with a large number of boats. It also avoids some of the hazards with a dock or other structure protruding out over the water and it keeps obstacles out of our race course. The digging went well until we got about 12 to 18″ down (depending on the location on the sloping shore) where we hit an expansive rock. We were able to pick at it’s soft chewy exterior but it got harder and harder the deeper we got into it. It’s preventing us from getting the depth we need and we were not finding it possible to pick at any more of the rock…or not at least at a pace we would be happy with. Our plan is to save up some more resources and rent/borrow some heavy equipment to deal with Mr. Rock in the next couple of weeks. We have also envisioned the possibility of a second phase with a mirrored “harbor” next to this one if one doesn’t prove to have enough capacity.
Until then, we should hopefully enjoy another great Wednesday night sail this week with our new found visibility.
See more photos of the work day in the gallery.
OH, by the way, there is also a new iPhone plug in on the website that makes viewing the site easy on your iPhone…
