|
More Progress recorded on Oct. 28
Jack Phelps sent some more pictures taken Oct. 28, and he wrote:
"This set shows the frame of the new judges tower and you can see where the power line was put in.
"The wood portion of this [judges stand] begins Monday.
"The jump tower is moving slowly as the company that sandblasts and paints the steel is holding up things a bit. Some of the steel is here but some pieces that the erectors need are not. The lower four sections are supposed to be ready after tomorrow for the wood deck to start.
"This morning a small crew worked on the stairs getting many of the new treads installed.We still have about fifty treads to go."
A wooden judges stand will be built on this steel foundation.
Gone are the days when the three hefty judges, Don Burdick, Bernie Dion and Toby Sprague, would clamber up on Saturday to give the rickety looking old judges stand its annual 800 pound safety test.
Below, left, current FIS rules place the judges stand much farther down the landing hill than it was in the old days, for improved view of the flight and landing.
Above, right, underground electrical service to the judges stand (the black track) no more suspended wires to block the view, or to be snagged by equipment.
The new inrun is starting to look like a ski jump .
All this steel is waiting for just a few important pieces.
New Progress, Oct. 22-24
On October 26, Jack Phelps of SWSA sent four more batches of pictures taken Oct. 22, 23 & 24, and he described a busy weekend.
"We just had an eventful weekend. It started with a steel delivery on Friday and some more of the tower going up.
Saturday brought the begining of a two day work weekend at the hill. We had sixteen volunteers show up first thing in the morning. Of this large group I would especially like to thank Art Tokle and Mark Breen who came from out of town and both spent the whole weekend with us. We broke up into a couple of groups. One group worked on the defection boards to be built opposite the stairs and the other group rebuilding the stairs that had to be removed for the new knoll. We spent all day at the hill enjoying a cookout on the Byrd house deck for lunch and some of Cricket Trotta's home brew after the days work.
Sunday we had a few less people but managed to finish the deflection boards and get the stairs ready for the installation of the new treads. (Same cookout for lunch and good brew after the work was done!)
Monday the steel frame for the new judges tower went up. I will include photos of that later in the week when I take more photos of the tower progress. Jack Phelps
We have selected eleven of Jack's photos and posted them below, again in reverse order of the dates that they were taken. To appreciate the progress on the deflection boards,
click here, then slowly scroll up.
Below, left, Mark Breen works with the crew on the stairs, digging a post hole. Mark is a New York State Policeman and a SWSA member. A talented Masters Class competitor, Mark is undefeated at Salisbury and was crowned Eastern Masters Champion three of the last four years.
The Churchill Brothers, Rafe and Seth, the prime contractors for the new hill construction project, have been great SWSA supporters for several years. Here Rafe (squatting) speaks with his brother's son, and SWSA director Don Breslauer holds a post while an unidentified SWSA volunteer tamps the soil in the post hole.
SWSA ski jumper Julian Holland (left) and club president Ken Barker load up posts and plywood for the new deflection boards.
International Ski Federation Rules require smooth "deflection boards" down both sides of the track and the landing to contain a skier or his equipment in case of a fall. Satre Hill already had these "hockey boards" visible above along the stairs on the east side of the landing, but needed to build new boards all the way down the west side.
SWSA stalwart Mat Kiefer (right) watches as out of town workers Art Tokle (red cap) and Mark Breen study the blue prints of the new jump.
More Steel Arrives!
On October 22, another batch of steel arrived and was swung into position and bolted in. With the nice grass in the background and the large flat area in the foreground, anyone familiar with the old Salisbury jump would assume that this is the bottom of the landing, but not so! (Note the tower structure in the background.) Jack tells me that the parking lot on the east side of the tower is now huge. They dug far into the hill to get dirt to fill the west side of the knoll and the landing.
Notice that these beams are slightly curved to conform to the inrun curve.
Five New Postings (some quite late)
In early October, Jack Phelps of SWSA sent five big batches of pictures which had been taken over the span of a couple of months. We have selected a few and posted them below, again in reverse order of the dates that they were taken.
The First Steel Arrives!
On October 7, the first truckload of steel arrived. We asked Jack whether they had driven this big truck right to the top to deliver the steel to where it would be erected. No, they didn't even drive in the crooked little road and across the tiny bridge to the outrun. Instead, they transferred the steel to a smaller truck which relayed it to the top.
The photo above was taken after lunch-time, and incredibly, before dark on the same day, all those pieces of steel were bolted into place.
On September 18, members of the Eastern jumping community attended a SWSA golf tournament. A few came a day early to see the progress on the new jump. Here jumping judges Corky Colby, Jack Phelps and Art Tokle take a ride in a "man lift" to check out the position of the new judges stand. In the second trip up into the air, Dan Warner replaced Colby. Apparently they approved of the judges view.
On August 29, Jack Phelps walked all over the jump site, recording the progress and the activity.
The old road running through the woods to the tower on the east side was greatly improved, and a new road was constructed on the west side, leading from Roy Sherwood's driveway up to the base of the new judges stand (still to be erected).
The picture at the right shows the top of the new road, and below is the view of the landing from about 150 feet back down the new road.
| |
|
Hard-working SWSA President, Ken Barker, warned us that we wouldn't recognize the bowl at the bottom of Satre Hill with dozens of trees gone and the land newly graded. He wasn't kidding. Here are two views showing the Byrd house, the cook-shack and that the machine shed, all in a very unfamiliar, wide-open setting.
Always Something Else to Do
With all that was going on building the beautiful new big hill, SWSA members decided that it was time to replace some of the poles supporting the tower of the old thirty meter jump.
Here are five photos showing a crew of four volunteers hard at work to make the small tower safe and solid. The workers are Scooter Tedder (yellow shirt, a new director in SWSA), Reg Lamson (dark green shirt), Cricket Trotta (blue shirt), and Ken Barker (running the back hoe).
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
