Chichester Yacht Club Magazine January 2020 | страница 6

Transforming the CYC Waterfront
By Chris Hodge
I am sure you will recall all the work that went into replacing the
Club pontoons in 2011. We bought 35-year-old pontoons from
Sparkes Marina and with a massive volunteer effort from all
sections chipped off the rust, repainted, reassembled them and
anchored them in their current positions. These have done a good
job but are now showing their age, while the bridges leading onto
them, which are even older, are barely holding together. Together,
they have been demanding more and more maintenance and the
cost in both time and materials has become a burden. Indeed, as
you walk around the waterfront of the Club you will notice that it
is generally in need of attention. The riprap stones that protect the
shore from erosion are being undermined in places and there are
still concrete blocks, stones and chunks of steel that date back to
the war, scattered just below the high tide level, that are
hazardous for our young (and not so young) sailors and their craft.
The interior of the Club has been upgraded and modernised both
in appearance and function with the refurbishment of the kitchen
and the addition of the Wheelhouse, not to mention more com-
fortable furniture and the coats of paint. Aiming to bring the whole Club up to this standard the GC pulled together a
team to look at improving the foreshore around the Club. The charge was to make an ambitious list of work, with the
expectation that some could be done by volunteers and other work,
like replacing the pontoons, would have to be done by specialist
contractors. Given the likely costs this was going to be a multiyear
project to keep it within the Club budget and included installing
drainage and resurfacing the dinghy park, building storage under
the outside stairs and replacing the race hut.
The team was formed with our worthy Rear Commodore Dinghies,
Alastair Jenkin, as the chair and GC link man, myself as project
manager, Nick Colbourne and Andy Skynner as the engineering
genius, supported by Roger Goodwin and Dan Hughes. Dan has had
to step back because of his job and Chris Grosscurth has now joined
us. Some of the work was tackled quickly and economically by
volunteers and you may have noticed the new racks for the Optimists,
Toppers and canoes which went up last spring and more recently the
new fuel storage containers. This voluntary effort will continue with
other elements of the work and much credit should be given to the
mid-week work party led by Andy Skynner.
The most important and more costly challenge was to replace the
pontoons, bridges and bridgeheads on the shore. These were priori-
tised ahead of the other plans because of the ongoing costs and their
condition. They are becoming a health and safety hazard. We knew
that the design of the new pontoons and bridges had to pass the scruti-
ny of a variety of organisations including the Marine Management Or-
ganisation (MMO), the local Planning Department (CDC Planning),
Natural England, and Chichester Harbour Conservancy.
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