Konza Sailor, March 2004, page 3

The Welcome to the 2004 sailing season at the Blue Valley Yacht Club! We actually had a winter this year but once again it's time to begin making preparations for our annual sailing activities. Now that the temperature has soared to above 30° we can start to work at the Club and get the essential equipment ready for another year's service. Although we probably won't attempt as many major improvements as we did last year I wanted to let the membership know what we were going try to accomplish this year.

The most pressing job at hand is the dock and walkway. It was repaired several times last year, usually under less

hinges will hopefully be holding strong.

Since we had so much going on last year the moorings were never properly checked out. Although they had been inspected the year before, all moorings will be examined and repaired (if necessary) this year. It certainly wouldn't look good if the Commodore's boat was to break loose and pinball itself out of the harbor hitting every possible obstacle in its path with mooring ball in tow, so the new work barge will get its workout this season. The manual bomb winch donated by Tom Manney works very well for pulling the mooring weights, but at some point in the future fitting the barge with a 12 volt power winch may take a lot of the exertion out of a time-consuming job.

There have been rumblings of late about adding a dinghy dock to our extensive inventory of marine accessories. This would free up the large dock for the big boats and give those of us piloting the big boats something else to hit. But seriously, a dinghy dock would be a well-used addition to the club and very useful during special events like the Sea Scout weekend. Our dock gets crowded at times, so the dinghy dock would add an element of safety to busy days in the harbor. And those intrepid sailors who launch their dinghies off the muddy beach could avoid having their lower extremities resemble the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Hope to see you at the club…or on the lake. I'll be the one with the muddy feet.

than ideal conditions. It stands to reason that it's going to break when conditions are the roughest, so this year the plan is to re-design the hinges to withstand the hammering they take when the wind blows the waves into the dock. Many of the hinge sections have been cobbled together in desperation, usually while the person repairing them was being lashed by spray and trying valiantly to keep the dock from breaking apart. Last summer I discovered first hand that it is incredibly difficult to pull the dock against 30-knot winds and accompanying lake conditions while simultaneously attempting to screw the hinge back onto the frame. The event was a potential "Funniest Home Videos" winner. This year we will endeavor to eliminate that particular entertaining activity by making the hardware much stronger. Even if the lake should swallow the dock in Titanic-like fashion, the