voices: the community speaks of Nantucket and GHYC

Charles Sayle III
9 Hooper Farm Rd
Nantucket, MA 02554

To: Nantucket Conservation Commission
37 Washington St.
Nantucket, MA 02554

Date: February 22, 2004

RE: Great Harbor Yacht Club

Dear Commission Members:

This letter is to voice some concerns I have with the recent applications from the Great Harbor Yacht Club. Nantucket needs to preserve its waterfront boat yard. The developers say there will still be a boat yard, but I cannot see it in their plans.

Just before our last hurricane (Isabel) I saw Grey Lady Marine haul 100+ boats and store them in the boat yard. They were hauling two boats at once. The large boats were hauled with the travel lift and the smaller boats were hauled with a fork lift. Most of those boats were put back in the water after the storm past. At least 25 of those boats were sail boats. Since there was waterfront boat storage available there was no need for all of those sail boat owners to remove their masts to transport their boats inland. The boat yard has proven itself to be a much needed resource for Nantucket's boating community especially during storm events.

As proposed the boat yard would only be able to haul one boat at a time and there is no onsite boat storage. This is a potential for major traffic jams due to the large numbers of boats being transported in land in a very short period of time. There is also a potential for major enviromental impact if the boat yard is not capable of hauling all of these boats in a very short period of time. As proposed the Yacht Club Plan is no more of a boat yard than the children's beach boat ramp.

As I understand it, the GHYC has separated its project into two different applications because they expect the water work to take much longer to be approved than the land portion of the project. As proposed if the land portion of the project is approved the boat yard would not be able to haul large boats. It is very important that Nantucket's only travel lift is usable throughout every stage of this project.

There is no need to do any dredging, if they plan their yacht club around the current boat yard. Moving the travel lift to the south east corner of the bulk head where there is low water would not be in the best interest of the community of Nantucket. If they want to be able to haul wider boats, they could accomplish this by building only one pier just a little wider than one of the current travel lift piers. There is no need for any more piers. They estimate that 184 of the club members already have town moorings. They would only need a launch.

If the GHYC Plans are approved it would be a tremendous loss of a much needed resource for Nantucket's boating community.

I have attached some photos that I took just before our last hurricane. These boats appeared one week and they were gone the next.

Sincerely,

Charles Sayle III