Wagenborg failure re-routes SI ferry
/Red Hook, Brooklyn
by Carolina Salguero
For reasons I can't explain, I so love it when the Staten Island ferries whoosh past the MARY A. WHALEN in the Buttermilk. Is it because they are my favorite color (orange)? Is it the wonderful way they stream by leaving no wake? or how they look so big slipping between the land masses of Red Hook and Governors Island?
This afternoon, I spotted one coming up the channel.
I called Staten Island Ferry Captain Jim Parese at 1544 to ask if he was steering the ferry headed my way.
He called back a while later to say that "that's my boat.. but I'm not on it." He was just leaving their simulator room. I asked why the ferry was coming this side of Governors Island, and he explained that a small ship in the 250'-300' size had lost steerage and dropped anchor off the range on Governors Island.
Jim Parese is a new friend thanks to PortSide's exhibit on the mariners response to 9/11. Jim evacuated thousands of people on 9/11, and his interview appears in the book "All Available Boats" and you could hear his oral history at our exhibit.
He sent the following photos of Wagenborg vessel which was having the trouble.
If you have any more info about what transpired, please call or write!