Dear HSC Club Members,
Spruce Run State Park reopened two weeks ago under social distancing constraints and no public use of restrooms. Several club members who have their own boats have rigged them up and even taken socially distant sails.
Yesterday, Governor Murphy announced plans to allow the opening of tennis clubs and driving ranges on Friday (albeit with strict social distance rules), and this raises some questions regarding potential for HSC to resume operations.
The good news is that NJ seems to be heading in the right direction. I am hopeful that the complete lockdown will be lifted June 15th after its extension last week. Unfortunately, HSC is being hit on two fronts between COVID-19 and HAB so we will have to stay vigilant on both situations.
Over the past weeks, the club’s officers and fleet captains have been continuing to monitor the situation and considering options to open or partially open HSC. We will post on-going notifications on the new HSC Blog.
In regards to COVID-19, the club clean up, picnics, and RC will be our social distancing challenge when the club does eventually open. The Force 5 and Sunfish fleets should be fine but we will need to see how to handle a double crew boat like the FS. Either way we will definitely have some strange facial tan lines having to wear a mask all summer.
Finally we will hopefully only see yellow HAB caution signs as opposed to the current red danger signs. The good news is that park staff say they have not seen HAB for two weeks, and are awaiting test results to quantify those subjective observations. Several club members report clear waters for sailing over the past week. However, last year it wasn’t until mid-June that things got bad.
The NJ Water Supply Authority plans to install some “BioChar” filters on the Mulhockaway Creek inflow on the far Western end of the Reservoir. However with the Covid chaos, it’s difficult to know when that will happen. It’s good to know least some mitigation plans are in the works.
Continue to stay safe. It has been a rough couple of months and I am looking forward to getting a break for sailing and catch up with everyone.
Andrew Commodore, Hunterdon Sailing Club
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