Visiting Vessels

PortSide produces and hosts the most innovative waterfront programs in NYC.  

PortSide has brought more visiting vessels to Brooklyn than major parks. The vessels have come from overseas, out of state, up state and Manhattan.  The list includes a wide range of vessels: tall ships, tugboats, a buoy tender, rowing gigs, kayaks, a racing yacht, and a large historic fleet from the Netherlands.  We run a visiting vessel ourselves!  

Getting a permit to bring a boat to a pier in NYC is harder and slower a process than it should be - something our advocacy tries to change - so the accomplishments here represent a lot of work!

We have hosted boats that were the attraction and boats that brought groups to see the attraction of our historic ship MARY A. WHALEN, the Navesink Maritime Heritage Society and World Ship Society, for example. We’ve hosted many visits from New Jersey SeaScout boats which allowed our our interns to ride these boats too.

Highlights

So far in 2024, we hosted the Hudson sloop CLEARWATER for three visits in May and June, and they will return for late September and early October sails. The CLEARWATER is a replica of workboats that sailed the Hudson centuries ago. The folk singer Pete Seeger had her built to inspire clean-up of the river, leading to their slogan “the ship that saved a river.” The Clearwater also became a national symbol of the environmental movement in its early days. While here, the sloop gave sails to schools, pay-what-you-can-sails for the public, full-fare sails, and themed sails with guest speakers. Visitors came from a wide area; see the map here.

In 2022, PortSide hosted the famous British racing yacht MAIDEN which sails around the world with an all-woman crew with the mission "educate a girl and change the world." See photo below of Red Hook kids putting their handprints on a sail that MAIDEN uses and interacting with a MAIDEN crewmember. Representation matters.

In 2018, we hosted the AMISTAD two times! Their visits meant a lot to the Black community of Red Hook and well into Brooklyn and beyond. This was part of our African American Maritime Heritage Program. During the tours of the Amistad, we installed an exhibit about AfAm maritime in the fidley of our ship and put out all the books in our AfAm maritime collection, and had Frank Hanavan teaching ropework skills.

An event that people still talk about was the visit of the Dutch Flat Bottom Fleet (photo at top of page), for the Hudson Quadricentennial. Some 400 visitors greeted the historic Dutch Flat Bottomed Fleet in Atlantic Basin on Harbor Day, 2009. Visitors swarmed the pier, the Flat Bottom boats, and boarded a surprise visitor in the form of the 150’ barquentine Peacemaker. Co-hosted by NYC EDC.

PortSide also promotes visiting vessels arranged by other groups such as when we promoted the OpSail/Fleet Week ships in Red Hook in 2012 and Fleet Week 2016 at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Our guide to the 2012 OpSail/Fleet Week ships in Red Hook was so good, OpSail handed out ours. Our webpage for those ships attracted over 26,000 hits in May. Our Twitter and Facebook pages provide a steady stream of updates about exhibit vessels coming to NYC.

September 2016, the former tanker LOUIS C below joined us alongside the tanker MARY A. WHALEN, and for a few years, we had at tiny tanker family.  The LOUIS C works in marine construction. The boat became a DockNYC tenant as a result of being alongside our ship.

Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, summer 2010

The historic tug CORNELL made several appearances alongside the MARY A. WHALEN (and more recently became a DockNYC tenant). The CORNELL towed the 173’ Steamer LILAC over from Manhattan for City of Water Day during which the Lilac offered ship tours and and two shipboard photo exhibitions.  In August, GAZELA, Philadelphia's flagship and, at the time, the oldest wooden square-rigger still sailing in the USA, was brought to Atlantic Basin by PortSide. She came with daytime tours and two cabaret performances a night on the main deck. This was featured in the New York Times, NY1 and other media.

Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, Winter 2009-Spring 2010

PortSide working with the NYC EDC, secured a winter berth for two impressive schooners:  the CLIPPER CITY, a 158-foot topsail schooner, and SHEARWATER, a 82-foot 1920's luxury schooner yacht.  As part of the deal, PortSide distributed 550 free tickets to community sails on the CLIPPER CITY in late April and early May. Years, later, in 2019, PortSide and CLIPPER CITY partnered to offer free sails to PS676 and Summit Academy students. As of 2024, they both sailing vessels are still tenants here.

Atlantic Basin, Red Hook 2008

On a raw December day, we attracted many people to the pier for the MARY A. WHALEN's 70th birthday party.  Visitors also came by water; the historic tug PEGASUS came from Jersey City after picking up guests in Manhattan. The active-duty tug JANICE ANN REINAUER joined the gang. The MV MANHATTAN swung through Atlantic Basin for a cheer and a wave, and several gigs from the Village Community Boathouse and kayaks rowed over from Manhattan. 

When we are a visiting vessel

We have been a visiting vessel ourselves, taking the MARY A. WHALEN to Sunset Park for the first, free, bilingual historic ship tours open to the public in 2010.  This was at a salsa concert so we call our presence “Petrolero con Salseros” (oil tanker with salsa musicians).  Over 400 people visited our ship, it was the first time on a ship for many.

Kayak Valet

PortSide invented Kayak Valet in New York City in 2006.  Kayak valet is now a common term and practice in NYC.  We designed the event to raise awareness that people want to visit by water and to promote that concept.  We watched kayaks in Valentino Park so people could paddle in, leave their boats and visit Red Hook.  We secured discounts from local stores and handed out our visitor guides to Red Hook.  The Red Hook Boaters now run Kayak Valet every time they offer public kayaking, as do many paddling groups around the city.