In an effort to keep club members informed of what has and is happening down at the docks... read on:
Yesterday, Saturday, started with numerous members out on the river including 5 of us participating in the PRC's 2nd Intermediate Clinic of 2011 coached by Peter Cortes. Thank you so much Peter for sharing your expertise and your gift of coaching. Again I came away with numerous things to work on AND an understanding of how.
The clinic finished at 10:00 AM and without missing a beat we started the process of removing boats from the boathouse to higher ground in preparation for the arrival of Irene. The club owes a very large Thank You to Basha, E Mac, Graeme, Kate, Kendall, Laura, Mike, Patty, Peter, Sally, Steve, and Wayne (please forgive me if I missed anyone involved) for their several hours of work derigging boats, carrying them to the trailer or car roof racks and then transporting them up to Graeme's shop. We carried the launch up to the parking area. The trailer was parked in between the wings of the shop and the other boats were placed inside. Many other items were also taken from the boathouse and left at Graeme's. Kendall made the final inspection of the boathouses and locked the doors. All seemed so placid at the time and we wondered if all this effort was in vain.
It was not! This morning, Sunday, around 9:30 I went down to the river to check things out. Though it had been raining all night, the river, amazingly, appeared to be a bit lower than on Saturday. You could have stood on the bank side of the dock and jumped onto the sand along the shore. The gauge at Walpole was reading 11.5 feet. I returned around 5:30 this evening to find things quite different. The ramp to the docks was nearly horizontal, a very large amount of debris was traveling down the now swiftly flowing river and the gauge at Walpole was reading 21.8 feet. That's a 10' rise.
Connecticut River level at Sunday at 8:02 pm in blue
Projected river level in green!
It ain't over yet folks. The current prediction, (no pun intended), is for the river to crest at 34-35 feet by mid afternoon on Monday. Flood Stage is 28 feet. At Flood Stage there will be water in the boathouse. You do the math. I'm wondering how the docks will fare. Graeme, have you ever seen this before, I mean with the docks in the water?
Stay tuned. Jim
Secretary, Putney Rowing Club
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