Boats, Boats, Boats! PortSide maritime center grows!
/Want to see boats? Authentic maritime activity? Learn about boats? Get a job on one? Visit us to see, learn, talk to crew! You can also just sit on our deck during TankerTime and soak it all up, or bring a school group to experience all this. You can also sit on our deck while waiting for the NYC Ferry. Walk to their dock as soon as you see the ferry enter Atlantic Basin.
PortSide is glad to be located on industrial pier where we can create a busy maritime scene. At the core of our maritime center are two re-purposed oil tankers, our Mary A Whalen, and the LOUIS C (ex-MANHASSET) belonging to Matthew Thomas Perricone, our partner and the principal of Lehigh Maritime. Lehigh does marine repair and training. They partner with us to restore the MARY and develop our maritime training programs.
Snapshot of a changing scene
For months, Lehigh ran a fascinating job repairing the 100-year old ferry COMMANDER which was tied up alongside the MARY.
A luxury yacht MONI tied up alongside us for several weeks.
The SeaScouts come visit on their T-boat, the SEA DART.
Our kayak and jonboats introduce summer interns to their first experience handling a small boat. We acquired sailing dinghies thanks to a donation by Babs Wye. Please come help restore them!
We built a floating dock for our kayak and jonboat this year. Perricone's is here for the winter along with his barge from the Brooklyn Bar and crew boats.
For several weeks, we were busy rescuing lots of 4x8 sheets of plywood from the water. We call the Army Corps to come pick up the big stuff.
Mladen owns the historic DIPLOMAT (ex-STEVANA) just forward of our MARY and allows boats to raft up alongside as this changing array moves around between his boat and ours.
Harbor School and Billion Oyster Project boats pop by. If you want to study oysters, we have a Billion Oyster Project basket! Michael Abegg bought an old buoy tender in the fall, and it joined the scene.
And behind it all, NYC Ferry, cruise ships, containerships and a diverse array of vessels on Pier 11 coming and going.