Public Meeting - Analysis & Preliminary Charting of Recreational Traffic Patterns in NY Harbor - 2/25/2010

2/25/2010 Update - Meeting postponed due to the weather. New date not yet announced, I will post it here once it's been announced.

So, I was planning to do a half-humorous, half-serious post about committee meetings being a better harbinger of Spring than robins (who hang around all winter in these parts) - but I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to do that with all the meetings, and this one's coming up fast. The following invitation has been widely circulated among the NYC-area kayak community & it just hit me that this is absolutely worth posting here.

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Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations Committee

Harbor Education Subcommittee - Mapping "Working Group"



UPCOMING Meeting: Thursday, February 25, 2010

Pier 66 Boathouse, West 26th St, Hudson River

6pm - 8pm



Project Information

The mission of the Harbor Education Subcommittee is "to develop a safer and more compatible interaction of recreation and commerce within a mixed use Harbor.

Following a number of recent discussions we need to broaden the partipation from all sectors of the maritime community to help us with this Mapping initiative. We believe that with a few group discussions over the next few months we can develop a plan to meaningfully advance this issue.

There have been many conversations over the years, in the Harbor Operations committee and various subcommittees about potential ways to reduce risk of collisions and incidents between human-powered craft and commercial vessels.

There are initiatives going back more than a decade to enhance local navigation charts with information about location of boathouses and other in-water program areas, and then to show frequent routes and paths for trips, tours, and other outings so that a wider group of harbor users could understand the patterns of human-powered activity. Much of this data already exists in data sets and map layers created by various groups like CUNY, MWA, Going Coastal, Water Trail, NOAA and others.

Project Goal - to identify areas of concern, and develop potential
guidelines and recommendations for boaters to follow (such as specific routes and/or VHF protocols - for high-volume areas of human-powered transits and especially crossings.

In December we hosted a meeting including representatives of Harbor Ops and the Tug and Barge Committee. Some of the suggested areas of focus were:
All Ferry Terminals, Chelsea Piers, The Battery, W 30th St Heliport,
Williamsburg Bridge, Hell Gate, Newark Bay, Raritan Bay, Erie Basin

Specific info on your own experiences as a mariner and or paddler and recommendations we should consider would be useful. Best practices from other Ports and countries are certainly welcome.

Our hope is to work on this winter and into spring, and then have some potential recommendations to discuss at the next Captain and Paddlers meeting in late Spring 2010.

Contact: Carter Craft carter@outsidenewyork.net, Harbor Education Subcommittee Co-Chair, Harbor Ops Committee of the Port of NY/ NJ
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Historical note -

I'm not sure I can attend, but I would like to - I was involved in a similar project back in 2000 under the now-defunct Harbor Community Liaison & Oversight Committee & it was really an interesting thing to work on. Unfortunately, the HCLOC fell victim to internal politics - just for starters, the chair had a major grudge against the Hudson River Park Trust, was involved in a lawsuit against them & refused to admit that that might be a conflict of interest. I actually ended up publicly calling him on it when he began manuevering to force the Trust to go through his committee if they wanted to get Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations Committee (Coast Guard & commercial operators) input on their plans for boathouses in the park. I just got to a point where I couldn't keep quiet & blurted out "But you're SUING them!" in the middle of a meeting one evening. Hadn't particularly planned to, just did it. Blech.

What a very strange & depressing time that was. I'd been very enthusiatic about what we were doing & had put a good bit of time & effort into it, and there I was turning on the guy who had put it all in motion. Felt like I had to, but it didn't feel good.

Anyhow, the paperwork from 2000 was lost (I think I heard it was destroyed on Sept 11th, 2001), but the idea is being resurrected now. The NY harbor estuary boating scene has changed a ton since those 2000 meetings - twenty times more EVERYTHING, I think. I don't think I could even contribute much, since I haven't paddled the upper harbor/North River area since '06, but boy, it would be interesting to hear what those who still do have to say.

Tierra Del Fuego Talk TONIGHT, 2/11/2010

D'oh! Been so caught up in ice yacht reveries that I almost forgot that Marcus & Biff are doing a presentation about their adventures in Tierra Del Fuego TONIGHT at the Pier 66 Boathouse! Should be fascinating, I'm glad it's not a close week here at work. Visit their blog for full information.

Lyman, and good stuff in the Hudson River Park!

Here's the tug Lyman, northbound in the Buttermilk Channel around noon on Thursday, March 27th. She's towing a really weird-lookin' thing which I put up in the gallery of the day (link to the thing in a minute).

I was totally curious about this thing. I checked in with Tugster Will 'cause I tend to think of him as the go-to guy for identifying weird floating things. Well, he didn't know but he said if I could get him the name of the tug, that might help. Fortunately I took this nice picture - there she is, the Lyman.

And a minute later I took a picture of the thing.

BTW, I think it's pretty funny that I wrote that caption LESS THAN 24 hours before I heard this news! Came out yesterday morning, first saw it in a post from Nancy, the metropolitan coordinator for the Hudson River Watertrail Association, on NYCKayaker, was in the papers the same day.

And in other good news in the Hudson River Park - I was very happy to see that the barge that practically used to be my summer home (hey, we can't all afford the Hamptons) will FINALLY be reopening! Congrats to the Kreveys & all my old friends over there - won't be paddling there much since my boats are all in Canarsie, but you can bet I'll be stopping by to say hello & enjoy my favorite Lackawanna #3 combo - bargeburger and a cold beer, with a side order of sunset!

Sailing Saturday & a Visit to the Barge...

From Sailing & Pie...

Probably should've just gone home after the sail - was tired & sniffly & walking around a shut-down barge & boathouse just put me in a sort of a bad mood. Ah well. For those who actually followed all the sturm und drang that went on around the barge at Pier 63 last year, I thought you might like to see the update. Pay no attention to the cranky blogger behind the curtain.

Fun Stuff -

Boo. No sailing for me tonight. Must work work work.

A few neat things I've known were approaching -

Ever wondered if kayak polo was for you? Give it a try for free tonight (August 30th, so sorry for such late notice) with New York Kayak Polo!

This Sunday, September 2nd, it's time for the 15th annual Hudson River tugboat competition! I went last year, off-duty from the schooner for the weekend as I was recovering from a bad case of the flu & wasn't feeling entirely able-bodied yet - unfortunately the day sort of ended up in the "sad memories" file because of the then-pending closure of the barge (it was tough seeing that wonderful scene & knowing it was so close to over) plus a deeply depressing encounter with one of the self-appointed leaders of the efforts to do something about the closure - but I did get some great pictures. I almost feel like I should go this year just to wash last year's bad taste out of my mouth, but I'll probably go paddling instead - been getting a lot of water time in & I'm really enjoying doing some longer trips (catch-up post with semispontaneous Gravesend Bay trip coming soon).

And then during the first part of September - it's time for opera on a tanker! Evocatively featured on Tugster - it sounds REALLY cool.

Finally (well, for today's post, I'm sure there are lots of other neat things going on but these are the ones I've been wanting to mention before they were over & done), on September 21st, the Working Harbor Committee (same folks as put on the tugfest!) are offering another in their series of the Working Harbor Committee is offering another in their ongoing series of Hidden Harbor Tours - this time, it's the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the Kill Van Kull tugboat yards (I've seen the latter & it's really something to see). I'd be there except that I should be 1/3rd of the way into a 3-day paddle out along Long Island - that's been planned for months now, part of an effort to get into the Guiness Book of World Records for SLOWEST circumnavigation of Long Island by kayak (they have that as a category, right?).

OK, just joking about the record thing, but the slow circumnav plan is totally for real. More on that some other time!

BTW - Sadly, it doesn't look as though the barge where I spent so many hours of the last 9 years is going to open this year - but happily, at least New York Riversports, a not-for-profit organization created through the joint efforts of the 3 organizations that provided paddlesports fun of all sorts for so many years at the old barge, is now up & running in their shiny new boathouse at Pier 66. Still can't believe it took so long, but at least there's finally a restoration of some real river access in Chelsea. I'm happy for them.

Pier 66 Boathouse -

I haven't posted lately about the Pier 66 Boathouse developments because, well, basically there wasn't anything solid enough to post, just ongoing rumors of "we're almost there!", "next week, really!", etc. etc. - but it looks like the New York Riversports (minus whoever those Manhattan Waterfront Realty guys were) organization (a consortium of the various groups who used to call the barge at Pier 63 home) has succesfully negotiated the bureaucratic challenges that lay between the announcement that their proposal had been chosen & the time when the permit could be signed & the keys to the boathouse handed over.

And yes, that means the business I used to be a partner in, Manhattan Kayak Company, is back in business!

They've lost half the season already, but at least there are still a couple of good months left to salvage something.

Unfortunately this only means the boathouse is open - the barge itself, I don't know what's going on.

Who Works Hard on Memorial Day?

People who work in marinas with rack storage, that's who.

Ever think about that?

I watched for a while. I was impressed. This gives you the general idea if you just pretend it's different boats, not the same one over and over again, with the owners all sitting around waiting to get going on their holiday fun. I didn't time it but it was a matter of minutes for each boat.



On the same day, where did not one single boat get launched (or burger get grilled, or cold drinks get sipped, or river breezes get savored)?

At the boathouse or the barge at Pier 66 in the Hudson River Park, that's where.

More on that when I have a little more time.

Rustbucket News

slightly later in the day...almost forgot, heard a far more rumorish rumor that the barge may be moving VERY soon, like maybe tomorrow. No word yet from the DEC, at least as far as I've heard, but I think that at one of the recent meetings there was discussion of looking at the north side of the barge once it's moved. Theory is that will be too small a space (between the north side of the barge and the south side of Pier 66) to allow any large motorized vessels to use it, which would mean that kayaks could be there even if you accept the premise that motorized & non-motorized vessels have to be separated. Post move, I guess people will be checking things out, see how everything will actually work spacewise.

later still...update on still EXTREMELY rumorish rumor - windy forecast has put the kibbosh on tomorrow. Probably safest to say that the barge is supposedly going to move sometime in the next few days & leave it at that.

Don't hold me to it, though, OK? If I was a journalist, this would be some pretty darned irresponsible journalism. Fortunately I'm just a blogger.

Jeeze. I wonder how excited I'd be if I actually planned to go back?

Friday morning - took down rumor #1 at request of 2 old friends. Will repost when it's not a rumor any more. Sorry guys, I got a little too excited.