Even though we cannot use our club house any more, our keel boat racing continued, as did our junior sailing programs, out of our make-shift sailing center (a 40-foot container). We press onwards with our reinstatement planning. Thank you everyone, for your support so far.
It's amazing what can be achieved in a little over a week by a passionate and determined group of people. Our clubhouse now has 25 metres of land between it and the sea, precious metres purchased at the cost of every dollar the club had with more still owed.
We are now working with an advisor from Thames Coromandel District Council (thanks to Mayor Len Salt) navigating the minefield that is agreeing on a new location in the heritage listed reserve we occupy. Building and Resource Management Consent costs are the next major hurdle, and we start the process with empty pockets.
If we make it past this point the Club earns the right to raise thousands more dollars siting the building and reconnecting services.
We are only slightly more determined than we are daunted.
Two house moving trucks were carefully manoeuvred into position under the clubhouse through much of Wednesday afternoon. The building started its journey inland with a leg to the south a just after 1700 hrs against the backdrop of keel boats starting race 1 of the Club's Steinlager Series.
The Race Officer sat in the sand at the top of the washed out beach access ramp, VHF in hand, to call the start sequence. This race will be remembered as the first time the Club end of the start-finish line ever shifted during the race.
Thanks Greig Running's House Relocators Ltd, this awesome team not only rescheduled other jobs to help the Club out, but gave us a discount. Amazing community spirit guys, what a service!
Again Mercury Bay Boating Club is humbled. This time by a team of around 30 volunteer members who toiled right through Saturday preparing the building for relocation. They emptied the clubhouse into shipping containers, removed the surviving decks, dismantled sheds and removed all the debris from the site before the day was done.
I guess the good thing about dark times is how great people shine through them... and our members shine brightly. Thanks to all the volunteers and thanks to everyone who has donated, we see you shining over there!
Mercury Bay Boating Club stands humbled today, grateful for the quick community response to implement emergency measures as Cyclone Hale ripped in to the bank in front of the club. In less than 7 hrs, this community team –HIAB, tractor and digger owners, spade handlers, bag holders, sandwich makers, mums, dads, children – deployed a temporary sea wall and saved the club from being undermined and swept in to the sea.
A huge round of thanks and applause to MBBC Life Member Al Gould for sourcing and delivering the concrete blocks from Paeroa and to Graham Christensen of Christensen Cartage and Dave Balfour of Urban and Rural Excavations for operating the machinery.
With speed and near surgical precision, these two gentlemen picked up and placed 64 concrete blocks weighing 600kg+ and nearly 100 sandbags, weighing in at more than a 1000kg. They moved mountains!
We would also like to highlight the efforts of Grandfather Scobe who at 80 yrs old operated the digger that assisted the spade handlers to fill the bags with sand supplied by Peter Abrahamson of The Waterways carried on Hoppers trucks. As more unsettled weather approaches, the club now moves into the next phase – picking the building up and moving it out of harm’s way.
Despite the catastrophic setbacks caused by Cyclone Hale, the club plans to run our Junior Sailing courses, starting Monday, 16 January. Still we rise.
