#makeMARYrunagain!

Help us make the historic ship MARY A. WHALEN run again! For this capital campaign donate HERE not via the yellow tab.

This is PortSide’s project to recover from hurricane Sandy which hit NYC on 10/29/12. After over a decade of helping others recover from Sandy - work that earned us a White House award and honors from the NYS Senate - we now ask for help with own Sandy recovery. At the bottom, read more about the impact of PortSide’s recovery and resiliency work.

Here is PortSide’s one-pager about what we do and our impact.

What does this project do? Why is this important? Who does it impact?

This does major work to get the ship engine running again.  While FEMA pays for the ship to be in the shipyard doing that work, we will do necessary maintenance work leveraging the FEMA funds that pay for lifting the ship out of the water and relaunching her and her time in the dry dock – but we need to raise money to cover the maintenance work. FEMA only funds projects they consider resiliency, not maintenance.

A major historic preservation contribution: The MARY is the last of her kind in the USA and on the National Register of Historic Places. She is a museum of herself and a vital community center for Red Hook, Brooklyn. She is NYC's favorite oil tanker and a great platform to teach about USA fuel consumption and how that relates to climate change.

Supports impactful education programs on the ship. The MARY is where many NYC students learn, where many disadvantaged students get their first ship experience and first exposure to NYC’s largest open space – the harbor.

Supports and grows workforce development programs with high school students and adults. A running engine will allow us to start training people in marine engineering. We have an identified partner for this.

Protects a beloved floating cultural center and attraction where PortSide WaterStories programs reach a large, diverse cross section of New Yorkers, serve our neighbors, AND attract visitors to Red Hook which supports local businesses and community revitalization.

Protects our shipboard offices thus supporting ALL our work above plus our virtual programs (Red Hook WaterStories and African American Maritime Heritage), our BLUEspace advocacy that influences NYC policy and practice including using the marine highway to move last mile freight, increasing historic ship visits and kayaking access, designing the waterfront edge, and federal resiiency plans for NYC.

Will net us a much-needed revenue stream that will support all the above. We can earn money with the ship (rent her for private events, sell tickets to our events, earn money from mariner training) that will support our programs and ship maintenance.  We need “Attraction Vessel” status from the Coast Guard to do that (compare to a building permit) which they will only grant after the ship undergoes maintenance work that they approve.

Make us more insurable. The increase in extreme weather means that insurers now prefer historic ships with running engines so the ship can move away from storms.

Help us attract and retain volunteers with maritime skills. They like to work on ships that sail, but we’re stuck at the dock so long as we lack a running engine. Having such volunteers keeps the ship fit all the above in a great, happy feedback loop.

How you can help

• Please donate!

• Share the link to this page.

• Join our fundraising committee.

• Donate auction items (things and/or experiences) for a fundraiser.

• Call all your millionaire friends!

• Create your own Facebook fundraisers.

• Create fundraising videos (short ones for TikTok, IG etc).

• Design memes, flyers, and swag for donor thank you’s.

• Help us set up an e-commerce store with that swag.

Thanks for your support!

Why has this taken so long?

It took us FIVE years to be accepted into the FEMA program, a few years to do the estimating and get FEMA approval, and then we got interrupted by doing the 2018 business plan required by our landlord, the NYC EDC, to get building space they promised us before (a biz plan they ignored), and then the pandemic hit. We are back at it!

The scope of work in our FEMA Sandy recovery project - an “Alternate Project”

A FEMA Sandy “Alternate Project” does not replace what was damaged by Sandy, it does “alternate” work that makes the storm victim more resilient. PortSide’s Sandy damages were OFF the ship since we protected the ship from Sandy.

Our project will do major work to prepare for our ship running again (t won’t complete all the work, the rest would be done out of the shipyard). This includes removing damaged pieces from the engine in the MARY now, and installing ones from the engine we got from Kennett, Missouri in 2020 plus auxiliaries donated by Carver Companies from the tug CHANCELLOR which was scrapped.

The FEMA contribution is $231,000. It is reimbursement money, so we will need a loan, and it won’t cover the full costs. More money will have to be raised to cover the following work; we’ll know how much once we get more estimates.

The ship goes to the shipyard. The shipyard crane lifts off the skylights over the fidley over the engine and lifts dud engine parts out and lowers in replacements. Sea chest covers are removed, and sea chests inspected and replaced as needed. The propellor is repaired or replaced after assessment. Everything between propellor and engine (stern tube, tail shaft, stuffing box) is inspected and repaired as needed.  To prevent further interior rust, all spaces from forepeak through the cargo tanks are blasted and coated.  Then add ballast up forward to get her bow down so she is in proper trim to run. The anchor windlass is lifted to repair the cement pad under it and the deck steel as needed. It is remounted. Anchor chain is checked.

Other shipyard work, not covered by FEMA, that PortSide will do concurrently

PortSide would take advantage of FEMA paying for the MARY to be in dry dock and do maintenance work at the same time. This work is beyond the scope of the FEMA project and needs additional fundraising. PortSide will get a hull survey done once the ship is hauled out to to assess what hull steel may need repair. Then sandblast and repair hull steel as needed, prime and paint, attach sacrificial anodes.

Progress benchmarks & how we prepared for this

On 11/22/22, FEMA approved our request for a changed scope of work on our Sandy recovery project and gave us an extension to do it!

12/19/22, we got exciting news from the Carver Companies in Albany!  Carver is donating all the engine room auxiliaries parts we requested from the tug CHANCELLOR they scrapped. These parts represent most of what we need in the engine room to #makeMARYrun again. We started a capital campaign (the budget is being finalized spring 2023).

December 2022, Gerry Weinstein donated $20,000 in matching funds! Please help us leverage his contribution and donate.

Since 2006, we’ve chased down tips all over the USA about vintage parts, acquiring parts, and sought advice from specialists in our vintage engine, a 1938 Fairbanks Morse 37E12, 6 cylinder, direct-reversing engine, serial # 808553 with 450 hp, 300 rpm. Our lead advisor is marine engineer Nobby Peers of Whitworth Marine. In 2020, PortSide agot a whole vintage engine from the great people at the Kennnett, Missouri power plant to use for parts. As mentioned above, Carver Companies is donating all the engine room auxiliaries from the tug Chancellor. We got other parts from McAllister Transportation.

PortSide’s Sandy damages story

The PortSide crew protected the ship MARY A. WHALEN from Sandy, but everything off the ship was damaged, destroyed or floated away.  Those damages (over $340,000) generated the pool of funds upon which our FEMA "Alternate Project" is based.  ("Alternate Projects" don't replace like with like, they make the victim more resilient.)

FEMA obliges us to raise 10% of the project, or $26,000.  FEMA will cover 90% of the project or $231,000, and that is reimbursement money; so we need a bridge loan to pay the shipyard, and then FEMA reimburses.

It took FIVE YEARS of battling SBA and FEMA red tape to have a project approved in November 2017!   However, we were unable to complete this project summer 2018 as we did not have enough bandwidth to do this work and do the business plan that the NYC EDC obliged us to do to get the building space they had promised us before. The EDC has blocked PortSide from having any revenue-generating services by not providing that space or permissions for activities. This stunts our budget, affecting this recovery work, so we prioritized the effort to get the building space over doing the FEMA-approved project in 2018. The NYC EDC did not give us the building space; and we are still working to get it. Then the world changed. More hurricanes meant the marine insurance industry had to pay out alot, and then came Covid.

As a result, in April 2022. we asked FEMA if we can change the scope of work to do shipyard work that supports engine restoration and blasting, painting, steel repairs to the hull. We are asking for the change because, after years of hurricanes, marine insurers are reluctant to insure ships without working engines (because they can’t move away from a storm). A working engine would also enable the MARY A. WHALEN to serve as a training ship (growing our program options and ability to generate revenue). The project will make our ship Mary A Whalen more resilient and thereby make PortSide more storm resilient.

Please help PortSide as we helped others. We continued helping for years after those honors, see below.  We will be able to do more in the future if you support this project! Thanks!

PortSide’s recovery & resiliency work

Sandy preparation and prevention work

• Protecting the MARY A. WHALEN, a historic ship of national significance, from damage.

• Preventing the ship from breaking free which kept the ship from damaging the property of others. Compare that to the story of a similar tanker JOHN B CADDELL which became Staten Island’s symbol of Sandy and cost the City a lot of money.

Sandy recovery work

Our Sandy recovery work in Red Hook helped all sorts of people and earned us a White House award and honors from the NYS Senate.  The senior members of the federal Disaster Recovery Team came to talk to PortSide after our remarks on the White House panel when we won the award. Our proposal for a Sandy High Water Mark program inspired the FEMA program by that name which was then adopted by NYC OEM.

• We set up and ran a Sandy aid station at 351 Van Brunt during November 2012. We set up a computer center, coordinated the work of angel electrician Danny Schneider, brought in legal aid and business recovery assistance and directly helped homeowners, tenants and small businesses. We helped get Red Hook's Verizon internet back up thanks to help from John Liantonio of the Port Authority! His prior job was to cellphone industry rep for the northeast, so when we found the internet out at Realty Collective as we set up our Sandy aid center, we had Peter run our modem up a tree and then called Liantonio, asking do you know the CEO of Verizon? Red Hook is devastasted by Sandy, Verizon is out, and our aid center needs it. Liantonio made the calls, and Verizon was back up in less than 48 hours.

• We ran a virtual aid station for months that offered updated recovery resources.

• We ran six months of monthly Red Hook Sandy survivor meetings with a partner.

• We honored IKEA for their Sandy recovery work to highlight the massive, and unreported, work of the store. To help future resiliency planning, all should know who did what.

• We honored our Red Hook Sandy recovery partners to draw attention to their work.

Resiliency work

We continually post resiliency info on our social media. Our school education programs often include resiliency topics. We speak about resiliency issues where they intersect with other local topics such as the development of the last mile fulfillment centers. Our ongoing resiliency work also includes:

• 2013-2014: We were appointed by NYS Governor’s office to Red Hook NY Rising committee and contributed significant elements to the plan for $3MM in State funds. PortSide staff and interns did research supporting the committee (which includes one, two, three, and four blog posts) during the committee's eight months of work. We returned to the committee, renamed Resilient Red Hook during 2016 and much of 2017.

• 2016: We created a Resiliency 101 guide in our e-museum Red Hook WaterStories and continue to grow this.

• 2016: During a Pioneer Works resiliency hackathon, we partnered with app developers to create a pilot app High Ground NYC about vehicle evacuation. That one focused on all vehicles, not just ones with commerical plates. This was the outgrowth of the following proposals we made publicly before that. We noted the effect of Sandy on the hustlers in the Red Hook Container Terminal where our ship was docked at the time (6 months to replace bearings in all the wheels) and other commercial vehicles in Red Hook and proposed that NYC create a commercial vehicle evacuation plan.  Vehicles with commercial plates are not allowed to park on the street overnight which means they can be ticketed for doing so if they park overnight to escape the flooding of coastal areas where so many NYC m-zones are located.  We proposed that they be allowed to do so to get away from a flood, but that a vehicle census be taken and then some streets be designated to accommodate those numbers and types of vehicles so chaos did not result from vehicles clogging essential streets. We have also touted the BQE as such a resiliency asset given what one company did in parking their vehicles single file up there so as to not block the BQE but saving their entire fleet. NYC’s Department of City Planning incorporated a commercial vehicle flood evacuation plan as a recommendation. It’s on pg 5 of these policy recommendations.

• 2017: We assumed stewardship of the Community Emergency Readiness website Ready Red Hook. After hosting this a few years, the Red Hook Initiative (RHI) resumed stewardship. In 2022, it seems to be dead.

• 2017: We installed, on the Atlantic Basin fence, a flood prep sign in a life ring that uses our popular ship cat Chiclet as spokesman.

• 2017: We served on the Advisory Committee working on Red Hook public art projects about climate change and sea level rise, a process led the Mayor's Office of Recovery & Resiliency, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and Councilman Carlos Menchaca's office.

• 2017: We collaborated with artist Katherine Behar and Pioneer Works to create "Maritime Messaging: Red Hook" performed and installed on the 5th anniversary of Sandy. Sunday, 10/29/17.

• 2017: We spoke at two Red Hook resiliency events: Thursday 10/26 WATERSHED art opening and Saturday, 10/28 Resiliency Roundtable.

• 2019: Adding to the Chiclet sign above, we arranged for an official OEM Sandy High Water Mark sign to be installed near the Atlantic Basin, Red Hook fence. This FEMA program was inspired in part by our suggestions when we received the Champions of Change award and were on a panel.

• 2022: In March, we ran a resiliency education and community service event for high school students. This is a pilot for a program school year 2022-23 with federal DOE funding from Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez.

We so appreciate your support!