Volunteers create new floating piers to ease water access
With the level of Lake Michigan still lagging an inch or two below last year’s already-extremely-low level, EYC volunteers have been working hard to modify and improve the EYC’s dock to increase its ease of use and safety.
One such improvement is the addition of floating pier sections along the south (inner) side of the pier. Ladders will provide access to these piers, which will float up and down with future changes in water levels. Now our juniors and other sailors can safely and easily access their boats for launching and recovery, even when the water’s surface is 5 feet below the top of the main pier.
Three floating pier sections (48 feet total) are in place and three more are scheduled for installation later this spring.
EYC Dock Chair Rich Bierman has spent scores of hours over the last three years — and especially this spring — designing, sourcing, building, transporting, and installing these piers. Rich has taken multiple days off from work to travel to Door County to make sure the piers were correctly fitted and installed. Please be sure to thank him when you see him. Also thanks to George Kraemer, whose company builds the plastic pier floats, and who found us a bunch of free used floats; to Jo Kahr and the Kahr family, who stored the piers for several years on the Kahr family farm until we were able to install them; to Steve Sauter and icecreamsource.com, who provided a gang of strong helpers to move some piers to the EYC; and to all the EYC members who helped build the piers.
The EYC’s dock began as a sunken stone barge in 1938. It is now 75 years old! Looking at it now, you would not even know its humble origins. Without the dock, the EYC could not exist. Its modern user-friendly configuration and good condition are the result of thousands of volunteer hours by hundreds of volunteers over the decades, plus the dues and additional charitable contributions of EYC members.
The EYC is a great value for its members in part because of our volunteers. Hundreds of EYC members volunteer every year. However, a small number of very hard working volunteers (like Rich) shoulder a very large share of volunteer duties. Even if you already volunteer for the EYC, please consider whether there is anything else you could be doing for the EYC, to help spread out the volunteer load. See www.eyc.org/volunteer