Docks Committee
I have a great deal of pride for the many members who’ve now come around to help make this a great yacht club. We really are getting more participation and a lot more critical work does get done. I see people having a great time together as well. It doesn’t get much better than having a rewarding and fun time, while simultaneously giving future, efficiency, cost savings, and more to the club which really is us all. The last work party saw 14 people hard at it and we have some newly painted and nice looking stuff as result. The real miracle, and there is proof of it, is that the last work party saw yours truly up on the scaffolding swinging a paint brush for the club! Them pigs are soar’n like eagles now, huh? J
Just a little biz here and then let’s think something else. There are committee meetings at 6:00 PM Tuesday, May 24 & June 28 (the 4th Tuesday of every month) and the next scheduled dock work parties are May 14 & June 11 (the 2nd Saturday of each month)
There may not be more than half a dozen or so people who really remember our club back to the early 60’s and 1950’s. Back before the times of flat roof covers, three full docks, and a single combined parking lot. There was a day when that lot was actually two lots, north and south, separated by shoreline that went dry at low water and allowed limited traffic for only part of the year. There was moorage right there in the parking lot to the west of dock 2, too.
The shore-side leg of dock 1 was maybe 70 feet further south than it is today. There’s still one lone symbol of where it used to come ashore. The work floats were then located along the shore near the willow tree and there were only two of them. The grounds there used to host several large cinder block pits where the salmon was barbequed and the potatoes baked. Imagine a truck load of salmon arriving, 750 to 1000 pounds. Even before that we had the annual salmon bake with member caught salmon at Port Ludlow.
Dock 3 was a long row of assorted styles of boat houses and a houseboat dock sat just a short distance south of the old dock three, which is the abandoned row of piling you see south of dock 3 today. Dock 3 only extended a hundred feet or so beyond the bend in those days and dock two didn’t even have finger piers on the south side of the dock.
To my knowledge the only remaining dock from the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s is the abandoned dock south of dock 3 which is actually on the Roanoke Street ROW, and the eastern part of dock 1. The pilings out there are old growth giants. There’s a little of that left at parts of Dock 2, and yes we did have covered moorage. Members installed curved pipe style frames over 2 boat wide slips and stretched canvas up and over the frames. It got so hot and so humid under those tents. It got hot and humid in Seattle politics too. I can’t imagine it, but apparently there weren’t permits for those covers and maybe the club didn’t care quite enough until they got the call to care. I won’t name him, but one of those gentlemen on the wall downstairs did a night in jail for us over those covers.
We got the flat roofs and seriously reconfigured docks in about 3 phases from 1959 to 1964. What a fabulous investment that has been and we gained so very much moorage and functionality in the marina. Today, a lot of the club focus is upon preserving the investment in those expensive docks and assuring their long life into the future. It’s all a great gift to us left us by some very generous and forward thinking people. We owe them the favor of preserving what we own as much as we owe it to the next generation who partake of our yacht club.
After the 1999 remodel, I almost broke a window several times over. I know the architect is reading this, so I won’t hesitate to say that it isn’t right that there is no door at the round table and no stairway down the hill! Okay old timers…. I urge you to correct me and add to this. Let’s get some of our history set in words.
Arthur Mauldin,
Docks Chairman
Now available for no extra charge at: docks@queencity.org
(Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. Ed.)
