When John DeMeyer built the first community sail float in the late 1980s, he didn't expect it to still be there 35 years later. Cobbled together by DeMeyer and volunteers using home center-grade materials, the float was a temporary fix at best.   

"It was not intended to be a long-term solution," he says. "It was just intended to get a sailing program going."  

DeMeyer, at that time a recreation manager with the Bainbridge Island Park & Recreation District and an avid sailor, was hearing from students who wanted to form a sailing club. He put a notice in a Bainbridge High School bulletin: "Anyone interested in a forming a sailing team, come to room 202 after school." Thirty-five students showed up.   

There were only two problems: there were no boats, and no place to sail from.  

DeMeyer secured a boating safety grant through Washington State Parks, then enlisted student volunteers and park staff to build a modest floating dock.  

Using off-the-shelf materials – "not Space Age stuff, basically what you could get at Home Depot" – they built six modular sections, each measuring 5 by 10 feet. The sections were built offsite, trucked to Winslow's Waterfront Park, and assembled on the beach at low tide before being floated out to anchor offshore from the park.   

The humble platform was enough for DeMeyer to launch a summer sailing class with borrowed boats. But the program grew, and over the years the Park District added sailing classes for youths and adults and purchased boats, Bainbridge High School welcomed sailing as a highly popular club sport, and the nonprofit Friends of BHS Sailing formed to fundraise for club activities.  

A generation of young people have learned to sail from the float, many going on to compete in college and returning as instructors, coaches, and mentors.   

"There's a lot of lifelong sailors out there," DeMeyer says. "They're adults now, having kids of their own. A lot of it started out there on that float."  

The float has been upgraded and patched up through the years, functional if increasingly saggy. But after more than three decades in the tough marine environment, it has finally reached the end of its useful life.   

The new Eagle Harbor Sail Float would replace the old platform with a modern, permanent facility connected to the Waterfront Park dock. Designed to current safety standards for long-term use, it would secure the future of Bainbridge Island community sailing and expand opportunities for youths and adults alike.  

"It would mean a sense of permanence for the program," DeMeyer says.