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CRANE DAY POSTPONED
by Dave Shearer 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

I have had many requests to postpone Crane Day. It seems that, with all the wet, cold weather over the last two months, people just aren't ready to go. And the weather next Tuesday looks horrible. So we will postpone Crane Day a couple of weeks. I will talk to the crane company and get a new date scheduled and send the email out either tomorrow or Saturday. Dave

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GSLYC Rebirth
by Dave Shearer 17 Mar '24

17 Mar '24

Below is an email from the Great Salt Lake Yacht Club. They plan to start their programs up again this year and are inviting you to read what some of their plans are. Dave March 16, 2024 Great Salt Lake Yacht Club Members, Another decent winter is encouraging us to get out on the lake and go sailing! Several of us who put boats back in the lake last year are now getting out on the lake. We are anticipating a longer season than last year provided. There is just over 5 feet depth at the shallowest part of the marina mouth, so the majority of boats currently at the marina should be able to get out to the lake by the end of March. As many of you know, Dave Shearer (GSL State Park Marina Harbormaster) is planning on a Crane day March 26th, followed by a Marina wide Opening Day celebration on May 4th. Many thanks to Dave for organizing these two events. I am sure Dave could use some help, please contact him if you are able to assist. It would be great to have a large GSLYC turnout for Opening Day, so let's get those boats out of the parking lot and into the lake! We are anxious to restart the Great Salt Lake Yacht Club, however with the current low membership, we need to be mindful of our expenses. Hopefully, with increasing activity at the marina, membership will rise, and likewise the GSLYC sponsored activities. We plan to have a booth at the pavilion on Opening Day where people can renew memberships, new folks can join, and you can purchase some GSLYC merchandise as well. We ask you to consider renewing your membership in the GSLYC for 2024. We are looking into restarting racing for 2024, assuming we have sufficient interest. As the GSLYC activities increase, we will need volunteers for socials, racing, and our big event SailFest. If you are interested in volunteering, please talk with us at the GSLYC booth on Opening Day. For the Juniors sailing program, we are looking into funding a couple slots in Dave Taylor's name into the Park City Sailing Juniors program. New members are $150 per year, renewals are $100 per year. Members who were active prior to the current GSLYC hiatus in 2021 can renew for $100. You can also join and renew memberships on-line by visiting the Great Salt Lake Yacht Club web site: https://www.gslyc.org/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__gslyc.us17.list-2Dmana…> We want to thank everyone for their continued support of the yacht club, and look forward to seeing you on the water in 2024. Dennis Hartley - Interim Commodore and the GSLYC Board members; Melissa, Hank, Bret & Ron

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GOOD NEWS - SO FAR
by Dave Shearer 07 Mar '24

07 Mar '24

We have had one hell of a winter this year! Lots of snow! Lots of wind! Lots of grey skies. I can say definitively that I am no longer a fan of the color grey. I think I would prefer plaid or mauve at this point. Many of you have been reading into my emails about lake level that I'm really trying to get the boats out of the parking lot. You are reading that right. We really need to open the parking lot back up for repairs and to just make room for all the parking traffic that is demanded from us during the summer. It was never intended that the parking lot would be long term storage. It was always intended as short-term storage as we waited to see what happened to lake levels. So, when making the decision of what to do with your boats in the parking lot, here is where we are now. The mouth of the marina is just over 5 feet deep. There is a strong desire to do some dredging this spring that will also make the mouth wider and deeper. I will give more details about that as it becomes available. As I stated earlier, we have had an incredible winter. Here are some numbers as of today: (understand that GSL gets half of its water from Direct Precipitation and half of its water from Spring Runoff) Precipitation of Normal for the water year (starting October) 139% Big number! Precipitation of Normal since January 1 = 169% EVEN BIGGER NUMBER! Precipitation for October: 125% Big number November: 124% Big number December: 60% Not exciting but not detrimental. January: 93% About normal February: 262% VERY VERY VERY BIG NUMBER! And we have had a great start for March. So much for the Direct Precipitation side. Now lets look at Snowpack. As of today we are at 129% BIG NUMBER with Bear River being at 129% This is very important as 60% of our runoff comes from the Bear River. Now lets look at another important number. It's called the Tea-Cup number. This is the percentage of water in the reservoirs that drain into the Great Salt Lake. Bear Lake is nearly full. That means The Bear River is coming our way this spring. Pineview, Causey, Lost Creek, Echo And Rockport are all in the mid 70% to mid 80% full number. Jordanelle is at 82% Deer Creek is 97% Willard Bay is 88% Utah Lake is 103% and they are dumping Utah Lake into Great Salt Lake as fast as they can. This means that the snowpack is COMING OUR WAY! It isn't going to be held back for the reservoirs. The lake bottomed out at 4192.2' msl in October 2023. We are sitting at 4193.9' msl today. That is 1.7' rise already. And runoff has just BARELY started. Now back to that depth in the mouth of the marina of just over 5 feet. We are going to likely get AT LEAST another 3 feet (maybe even more) of lake rise before we start to drop by evaporation this early summer. And we are likely to only drop 1.5 to 1.7' This would mean two banner winters and lake rise years. It is VERY likely that, if you put your boat in the water this year, you will be able to sail year round. There are some great activities planned this year including Great Salt Lake Community OPENINING DAY the first Saturday of May and also the Eardley Spit Cruise in early June. I have also heard that Great Salt Lake Row and Great Salt Lake Yacht Club are planning some great activities this year. There is a Crane Day still planned for March 26 or close to that date. If you are planning on craning in but aren't on the list now please get on there. It is looking like a great year or two at minimum to really get out there and enjoy the lake. Please do so. Dave

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Storm Damage
by Dave Shearer 04 Mar '24

04 Mar '24

Top wind gust today was 87mph. It did cause some damage. The fence between A dock and B dock has collapsed. One of the campers had his camper blow down the breakwall. We had a large tree limb break off. Catalina 27 near the end of B dock has a genoa that has become unfurled. Boat is in risk of demasting. Hartley, Your Coronado 15 is on its side in the dinghy compound near Shearer's fifth wheel. D28, mainsail is blowing all over the place. C 15, Mainsail cover is off and sail is blowing loose C33, Mainsail is laying on the deck We closed the park due to heavy wind but slip renters can still come out using the gate code. Dave

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A bit more storm damage
by Dave Shearer 03 Mar '24

03 Mar '24

Besides the damage the Brian Kenney listed, Merseth - boat rolled back into two other boats. Dave

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GSL data tracking.
by Pete Webb 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

https://towardsdatascience.com/tracking-the-great-salt-lakes-shrinkage-usin…

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OPENING DAY
by Dave Shearer 23 Feb '24

23 Feb '24

It is a long-standing tradition across the nation for marinas to hold Opening Day. This marina was no exception. Great Salt Lake Yacht Club hosted the traditional Opening Day events at the marina for many years but the event went into hiatus during COVID and having to pull all the boats from the water. But there has been a lot of requests to bring this event back now that boats are back in the water and able to use the lake. So HERE IT IS. THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT of OPENING DAY 2024 . . . SATURDAY, MAY 4th. Unlike past Opening Days, this will be a whole marina community event. We are still in the process of planning all activities for the day and are looking for any volunteer help we can receive as well as ideas. But here are some current highlights. * Boat Parade * Blessing of the Fleet * Social and beach (lawn) games * Potentially activities on rowing shells and sailboats. Mark your calendars. Dave

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LAKE LEVELS - CRUSING AREAS
by Dave Shearer 21 Feb '24

21 Feb '24

Water levels just keep looking up! We are having a great water year. This is going to create opportunities to explore the lake. Take advantage of it this year. I have sailed almost every inch of Great Salt Lake over my many years out here and there are some very cool places to see and explore. One of the new opportunities to explore is Fremont Island. Not that the Island is new but the opportunity is new. The Island was in private hands for over 150 years but is not the property of the state. Wenner homestead, gravesites, Kit Carson Cross, the old marina, the springs are just a few places to explore on the island. Also, we will bring back the Eardley Spit Cruise and social on June 8th (Mark your calendars now). This is a wonderful and well protected anchorage with sandy beaches and a nice breeze. For several years I hosted the Eardley Spit Cruise but the lake levels made that impossible the last two years. Well we are bringing it back. We will do the beach barbecue and beach games again. This will be an RSVP event but we have plenty of time before I start taking RSVP's. Every few weeks I will highlight an anchorage to venture out to and explore. Also, www.gslmarina.com<http://www.gslmarina.com> has a lot of information on cruising sites as well as GPS coordinates. Get your boats ready for a great sailing season. We are back! Dave

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MARINA UPDATE
by Dave Shearer 19 Feb '24

19 Feb '24

We have been having another GREAT winter with lots of direct precipitation and snowpack. Today, the snowpack for the Great Salt Lake drainage area, is 115% of normal and direct precipitation to Great Salt Lake for the month of February is just below 300% and we still have at least two more storms on the way. Many have asked if dredging will still happen. The answer to that is a complicated yes. The State still plans to dredge and are working on the final numbers to see how much we can dredge. The hope is to dredge this Spring or Summer. But I just don't know what else to say until I see final plans and numbers. There is already 5 feet of water at the mouth of the marina and my early prediction is that we will come up another three feet this year before dropping about 1.5 to 1/7 feet through the summer/fall. This means we will be in a position to open up most of B dock, C Dock and E dock. We will be able to open up ALL of D, I, J and most of K dock. There is a scheduled Crane Day for March 26th. I haven't heard any plans for a crane day after that. So if you want to go in this year you may want to strongly consider that date. Remember Crane Day is by RESERVATION and Pre-Deposit only. We may not be in a position to continue storing boats in the parking soon. We need to complete repairs to the parking lot and just don't have the room to shuffle boats around to other areas. SO it is time to start working on those boats and get them back in the water where you can enjoy sailing again. Thanks Dave

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Things are Looking Up!
by Dave Shearer 09 Feb '24

09 Feb '24

Could this be the year that changes the water cycle for Great Salt Lake? Could we have two wet years in a row? Something we haven't seen since 1998, 1999? The patterns since the turn of the 21st century has not favored Great Salt Lake: 2004 saw a good water year with a 1.9' net rise just to be followed by four dry winters; two of those very dry. 2011 saw an incredible winter with a 3.3' net rise only to be followed by five dry years; again one of those being devastatingly dry. 2017 saw another good water year with a 1.4' net rise but again to be followed by a very dry winter the next year. 2019 showed some promise with a 1.4' net increase to again be followed by three very dry winters 2023 had our best water year yet (sort of - I'll explain in a minute) with the lake coming up 3.4'. (explanation - The state separated the two halves of the lake in 2023 so the south half of the Great Salt Lake was able to trap all the spring runoff which artificially raised the south half based on the last 20 years) Now, here we are in 2024, and where are we? (remember the water year starts October 1st and runs through April. October had a great month with 125% precipitation. November was another great month at 124% precipitation December was horrible at 60% precipitation January was about average with 93% precipitation This brings us to February 9th. As of today we are at 186% precipitation for the whole of February and we still have 20 more days to go! On top of that, there is another storm barreling down on us in a little over a week. We have had enough direct precipitation in Great Salt Lake to take us all the way to March 22nd! And our snowpack? 114% today Utah Lake (Provo/Jordan River) where we get 20% of our spring runoff, is so full that they have started releasing water to Great Salt Lake as of yesterday. That is a big deal! The water is on its way early. Now our weather patterns could certainly dry up but it isn't looking likely So could this be the first year in over 20 years that we have two wet winters in a row for Great Salt Lake? With most of the reservoirs and lakes well above normal for this time of year it looks very likely Great Salt Lake with have another large net-rise in lake level. That being said, we need to get boats in the water this spring. We need to get them out of the parking lot so we can do much-needed work to the asphalt. So start getting those boats ready to put back in the lake this Spring and enjoy sailing on the lake again. Dave

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