Fall Work Day at BYC

Like most small clubs in the Mid-Atlantic, Brigantine Yacht Club has work days in the spring (to get the club functioning for summer) and in the fall (to put the club to bed for the winter). BYC generally holds fall work day before Halloween on a Saturday when high tide occurs between 8 am and noon.

Work days kick off about 8 am.  I arrived a few minutes after 8 and someone had already taken down the awning from above the main entrance doors.

Since the club had new plastic floating docks installed, work days are not as much bother as in the past.  Unlike the older wooden floating sections, these new dock sections are designed to remain in place all through the year.

However, the floats on the end of the T-dock are still the old wooden type and so that dock gets broken down, the floating sections craned out of the water and the ramp winched up out of harm's way.

After "walking" the individual sections over to the bulkhead, slings are placed around the float and the club's "big boat" launching hoist is used to get them ashore.  This used to take several hours when all the floating sections where wood.

This year we had only four sections to wrestle out of the water.

While the floats are secured ashore, the ramp that leads down to them is hoisted well above the expected flood high tide level and secured on a plank.  Normally the outward end of the ramp goes up and down with the level of the floats as the tide changes.  The rear end of the ramp is hinged to the fixed portion of the pier leading to the float dock.

The ramp leading down from the bulkhead to the plastic floating docks is also raised above the tide up  with "come-alongs" and secured with a plank, under the ramp, bolted to the two closest pilings.

The outer end of the launching ramp for the smaller dinghies will get the same elevated treatment for the winter.  This is both a good and bad thing.  It's bad because with the ramp out of commission it's almost impossible to put a small dinghy overboard on those rare winter occasions when the weather is agreeable.  It's good because it limits the temptation to go sailing (and maybe get in trouble) in winter when very few potential rescuers are watching out of their bay-side windows.

Small plastic boats like Optis, Lasers and the club's pair of 420s are placed on, under or near the Opti racks and will be shrink-wrapped for winter later in the week.  We used to store member's small boats in the clubhouse during the winter for a small fee but now the boats that stay on the property during the off season remain outdoors.  This way the club house can be rented for different functions through the fall to help keep dues from increasing.  So, after the hoses are drained, the loose gear is stowed, and the club's power boats are prepped and shrink-wrapped for winter, that'll be it for the 2012 sailing season at BYC.  Six months to go until the 2013 sailing season---sigh.