Here we go again ...

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: With Lanier water level dropping, hazard buoys are put in place

Lake Lanier continues to drop at a rate of about a foot a week as the Army Corps of Engineers steps up water releases to keep stream levels up in a drought.

As of Tuesday the lake, Atlanta's getaway body of water located about 40 miles north of downtown, was down 12 feet from the last time it was at full pool in May.

It’s predicted the level will drop another 2 feet by the end of the month, so much so that the annual Lanier Parade of Lights -- where boats take to the water at night in early December in a flotilla with Christmas lights -- has been canceled.

That’s the bad news. The good news is the receding water has exposed or brought close to the surface underwater hazards that can be marked and identified with buoys. For about the past month, that’s been Rick Marton’s mission.

Most days Marton, a 69-year-old retired airline executive, boat pilot and volunteer with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, consults a map that shows where hazards were exposed during the drought of 2007-2009, then heads out in his tug boat Little Toot to attach buoys at the sites.

On Tuesday morning he marked a spot that a few weeks ago was safe boating on a lake where most boats only need four feet of water to navigate safely.

“It’s just so crazy when the lake starts dropping like this,” Marton said. “People are used to getting in a boat and going and once they get away from shore it’s safe, but when it’s this low, it’s not.”

And we *just* got the running lights working on Bumbo so she'd be street-legal for night sailing. Sigh.

Oh well. Cheer up with this bit of awesomeness:

Lake level goin' down, walkin' over dry ground ...

For the second time in barely four years, we're back in the grip of a severe drought here in Georgia. The worst of it is well downstate, far south of Bumbo's home on Lake Lanier, where the levels have dropped only half as far as they did in 2007. But as of this posting, the lake -- the major source of drinking water for a metro area of 5 million -- is just over nine feet below full pool.

The lake was created in the 1950s with the damming of the Chattahoochee River, which flows south toward Florida. Just above the state line, it joins the Flint River to form the Apalachicola, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida Panhandle. According to an acquaintance who works for a conservation group, the Army Corps of Engineers is having to release more water down the Chattahoochee from Lanier to make up for the sharply reduced volume of the Flint. The effect has been to add about 100 extra feet of shoreline on Lanier so far.



We're getting some rain this week, bringing leaden skies and blustery winds (and some hairy sailing) ahead of it Sunday. Here's hoping for a bit more in the next few weeks.

This summer's project

Bumbo's crew has always talked about sailing out to one of the many little coves around her home waters, dropping the hook and going for a swim on a hot day. Unfortunately, the curve of the hull makes regular boarding ladders a bit problematic for all but Olympic gymnasts, while the transom is too narrow for one to be usefully mounted there.

So what's a sailor to do?

Steal someone else's plans and make one yourself, that's what.



This is a 1930s-vintage Sparkman and Stevens design for a folding boarding ladder, discovered using the miracle of the Google. Matt made a few tweaks for simplicity, eliminating the brass rail at the top and using red oak (same wood as Bumbo's rudder) rather than mahogany.

Each of the sides were cut from a single 12x24" sheet of 3/4 inch wood, with the treads cut from 1x4 plank. Thanks to George's ongoing home projects, he's developed quite the basement workshop -- so he and his dad notched the sides for the treads and set the pilot holes in a single morning's session.




The project was more challenging than expected. Matt managed to gouge himself with a nice, sharp chisel right off the bat; a couple of screws and a drill bit broke off in the hard red oak; and finding hinges in the proper dimensions took a couple of weeks of searching. (They can be found here if anyone else wants to try.)

But those obstacles were soon overcome with a relative minimum of bad language and another trip to George's basement. A couple of coats of varnish later, Matt mounted the apparatus on the back porch and started to climb, as the lovely Mrs. Matt stood ready with the phone to take pictures (and call 911 as needed).


"Hey, y'all, watch this!"

And it actually works on the boat, too:

Sadly, it's unlikely we'll be able to use it until next summer. But it's now stowed neatly in the lazarette, awaiting the first hot day of 2012!

A fine run

Ship's log, June 18:*

Bumbo's crew seized one of the last relatively cool days of the summer to hit the lake for a fine day of sailing. Winds were in the 10-mph range, skies overcast, cooler well-stocked -- quite comfortable conditions overall.

Out of dock under sail about 1:30 p.m., Matt and George aboard. Took advantage of favorable westerly winds to head deep into the Flowery Branch channel, a rarely visited finger of the lake, before beating back upwind toward the main body of the waterway. Tooled around the southern part of Lanier for about three hours before heading back on a run with the genoa poled out (above) in the first extended use of the whisker pole. Encountered the elegant Freedom 40 ketch Nani (below) on one reach.




Back into slip shortly before 5 p.m., just ahead of some much-needed rain.

*Belated entry. Really belated.

Still here

In case you were curious -- not that anyone associated with Bumbo was in any danger of actually being raptured or anything ...

However, we note that while Jesus Christ did not make his predicted return at 6 p.m. Saturday, jockey Jesus Castanon did win the Preakness about half an hour later. Perhaps someone confused their Scripture with their Racing Form.

January. No, really.

Ship's log, Jan. 29, 2011: Two weeks ago, Atlanta was under a blanket of snow and ice that kept much of the city pinned down for four days. Today, it was 65 degrees, so Bumbo's crew -- George and his dad, seen above, and Matt -- headed for the lake for a bodacious day of winter sailing. Gotta love the South.

Winds were a bouncy but easily manageable 10-15 mph as Bumbo slid out of the slip on her 160 Genoa and turned west, fairly rocketing across the cove and out toward the body of the lake. Gusts close to 20 saw Bumbo dip its rail into the water once or twice as Matt, and both Georges roared south toward the Lanier Islands, then ran downwind to Chattahoochee Bay before heading back to port a few beers lighter.

We weren't the only ones who decided to hit the lake on this unseasonably warm day ...



An easy two dozen other sailboats, ranging from racing cats to a Freedom 44, were out on Lanier today.

Out of slip at 1:55 p.m. Downwind leg saw the first full trial of Bumbo's whisker pole -- a bigger shackle to clamp onto the jib sheet would be helpful, but otherwise a successful trial. Back into the slip at 5:15 in a flawless approach under sail with George at the helm. After a year as weak as 2010 was, Bumbo's hoping for a few more days like this one in 2011!