To the generous donors and supporters of our dock project,
I am writing to share with you the reason for the delay of the construction of our new dock. I understand any uneasiness concerning the timeline. I share this disappointment. We truly have been working consistently towards the goal, but as is evident in a recent publication in The Tiger, we have experienced unforeseen developments concerning our club’s position on campus which have delayed our united excitement for a new dock.
Please see that article here: https://thetigercu.com/16478/news/underwater-waterski-and-sailing-clubs-excluded-from-new-watersports-facility/
First and foremost, I want you all to understand that no part of your donation has left our donation fund. We have saved each of your gracious donations intently so that we can collectively achieve our goal; we have not spent one penny on anything else.
Next, to explain the delay. As you can read in the recent Tiger article, we have been excitedly awaiting a move across the cove to a new club watersports facility these past seven months. However, we were recently told by another watersports club leader that these plans that originally included Club Waterski, and Club Rowing, and our club no longer accommodated any clubs but Rowing. With the uncertainty surrounding this new plan, Campus Recreation had been hesitant to work towards Army Corps approval for the new dock until we are sure of our club’s placement on campus. This halted our progress and was the reason we paused our fundraising efforts.
As it became increasingly clear that the original plan to build a Watersports Facility including all three sports had been removed from University Facilities' short term plans, Campus Recreation began to take steps towards getting our new dock built, as they understand the urgent need to replace our current sinking dock. Two weeks ago, Campus Recreation received verbal approval from the Army Corps to build our new dock in our current location. This set our efforts to build a new dock back in motion. Since then, we have met with the contractor that will build our dock, Kroeger Marine. One of our past Commodores (2005-2007), Liam Cunningham, is a representative of this business and has worked closely with us to produce the best possible dock plans. In this past meeting, we reviewed the choices we made last semester including materials for the new dock and dimensions. Kroeger is now working on engineering drawings for the dock that will be submitted to the Army Corps for final approval, while Campus Recreation finalizes the legalities of our new dock’s placement with the Clemson legal teams.
If you have not donated but are able to, we could still really use your help. The ramp on our current dock has broken twice in the past few months. The second break happened over the Thanksgiving Holiday and is likely going to cost us four times more to fix than the first break; up to $2000. The current dock’s safety and function need to be maintained for our sailing programs over this next semester. Additionally, we also have not quite hit our financial goal for the new dock. If you are able and willing to help us through the final stretch of this project we would be so grateful. You can find the link to donate at the bottom of this letter.
All in all, we aim to begin the build by the summer. I hope this transparency showing what we have been going through makes it clear to you that we have not stopped working on this project, and excites you as it does me that we are back on track to making our new dock a reality. Thank you again for your generous donations; without them there would not be a new dock to fight for.
I would be happy to answer any questions you have about this process at cblinde@clemson.edu .
If you have not donated but would like to, you can do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/clemson-sailing-dock-fund?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined
Fair winds,
Claire Lindeman
Commodore