The “Boatbusters! Halloween Parade, Race & Fundraiser” sure was a success! According to the History Channel, Halloween tradition is dated back 2000 years ago, where the Celts marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. This tradition was spread through Europe and was modified by the church and different ethnic groups. In America, as the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. To me, Halloween has always been a holiday I had mixed feeling about. On one hand – I am all in when it comes to wearing costumes, decorating houses and having fun. On the other hand – I always felt a bit quite uncomfortable with the Trick-or-Treat tradition, as kids who are Trick-or-Treating are expecting to get candy, get upset when they don’t get enough and get pulled into crazy sugar-rush caused tantrums.

If there’s one good thing that came out from 2020 is a shift in attitude. Some sociologists and politicians thought that the long months of lockdown, learning, adapting and becoming accountable to new standards of behaviors, such as: personal hygiene, social distancing and mask wearing, would be detrimental to our society. In reality, people who care stepped up in solidarity and took action to make an impact on the lives of the less fortunate.

A few months ago I wrote an article telling about Michele Wiemer and Barry Richards, a sailor couple, who started cooking meals on their boat and delivered them along with masks to Jersey City Homeless in Journal Square. A couple of weeks later, Michele & Barry started a Go-Fund-Me campaign – “Sailors and Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless” to raise money to fund food products and mask materials. Since then, Michele & Barry’s network of friends and family across the country got inspired by this initiative and joined them in making different nutritious meals every week and making sure that the homeless – who are part of our community and society, are protected and protect others who they come in contact with from Covid-19.

Halloween is always a bitter-sweet time of the year for us, sailors. While it’s fun to go sailing wearing costumes, it’s also the last sail for the season… Remembering Kennedy’s famous quote, I decided not to let covid-19 to get in the way of celebrating our community through extending kindness beyond. In that vein, I decided to re-imagine the Trick-or-Treat custom, from an act of getting something or feeling entitled to something, to an act of giving to others. The Trick-or-Treat became a way to either raise donations to the “Sailors and Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless”Go-Fund-Me campaign (Trick) or donate a coat, a warm clothing item or a non-perishable food item to the homeless (Treat).

As a new member of Liberty Yacht Club, I was able to present this idea and gain their support. The officers of Liberty Yacht Club recognized the impact we can make as a community by supporting its members in bringing awareness a local NY Harbor region cause, through bringing members last opportunity for this year to get together on the water and to start an annual club tradition. With the assistance of LYC members, LLM tenants and others, I was able to present a day long event that included a boat parade, a sailboat race and a Trick-or-Treat contest.

 

The event started on a very cold morning of Saturday 10/31/2020, with the Boatbusters Boat Parade, led by Le Peniche – with Captain Jim Chambers at the helm. Le Peniche led the 9-boat parade along the Morris Canal from Liberty Landing Marina’s fuel dock west, and then back east towards green buoy 1 at the entrance to the Morris Canal. The parade participants stepped up for the game with decorating their boats, having Halloween theme accessories and costumes. A few kids were sited on board the different boats, and in spite of the cold temperatures, everybody seemed delighted and amused. After the boat parade, 7 of the boats prepared for the race start.

 

The special custom made prizes, created by glass artist Stephanie Baness of Moxie Sorbet Designs. Thank you Liberty Landing Marina and Dockmaster Andrew Licata for your help and support in coordinating the event.

The post Liberty Yacht Club’s First Boatbusters! Halloween Parade, Race & Fundraiser was a great success! appeared first on New York Harbor Channel.

Money donations from the fundraiser will be made through a go-fund-me campaign Sailors & Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless started by Michele Wiemer and Barry Richards, who are boat owners in Liberty Landing Marina. In addition to money fundraising, they are also looking to collect coats and food items for this same grassroots effort.

The event, presented by Liberty Yacht Club, will take place on Halloween Day, Saturday 10/31/2020 and the schedule is as follows:

• 10:00am -10:45am – a Halloween Boat Parade along the Morris Canal
• 10:45am-12:45pm – Sailboat race in the NY Harbor
• 1-3pm – Trick or Treat on marina’s docks – fundraising for the above cause.

In order to prevent the spread of covid-19 we instruct participants to team up with groups of up to 6 people max on each dock, maintain a social distance and wear masks (not just Halloween masks.

Attached please find a digital copy for the Boatbusters flyer, as well as a banner you can use for a Newsletter in case you’d be willing to participate.

The website link to find more information and to register to the event is: Go to the Quarter Deck section of www.libertyyachtclub.org for more info. (the QR code in the flyer takes you there). Must register no later than October 28th.

So come Join the Liberty Yacht Club for one more Race for the year, along with a food, clothing and Trick or treat fundraising event! It will surely be SPOOK-tacular!

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Covid-19 Emptied the Waters of New York Harbor in 2020

Today’s ninth annual Liberty Cup event saw twenty one boats compete in a feisty End of Summer Classic that had diverse conditions that made the afternoon’s three division races a delightful challenge.  Sailboat Racing is common in New York Harbor; however, organized regattas are not.  The Liberty Cup is the only inter club regatta held in the harbor.  This year, amidst the Covid pandemic, it was the only regatta to be conducted that was not cancelled. The Liberty Cup is part of a 4 regatta series: the other 3 regattas are Bill Volk regatta out of Keyport YC, Red Grant out of Raritan YC, and Blue Water out of Atlantic Highlands.

We should note that the Lady Liberty Regatta is traditionally held every June and the all female event races a J/24 boat design.  Also, the thirty five year old Around Long Island Regatta would have started at Liberty Landing Marina on its’ traditional last Thursday in July.  Its’ eighty plus entries amass in the harbor, travel out into the ocean, round Montauk and Plum Gut, then finish after 209 nautical miles at its home port of Sea Cliff two or three days later.  The ALIR start in New York Harbor is a tip of the hat to its founder, Frank Braynard who co-created the 1976 OpSail that famously filled New York Harbor with international tall ships from every corner of the globe.

Covid-19 Did Allow A Handful of Off Shore Regattas

Liberty Yacht Club’s Commodore David Spence is a veteran of dozens of inshore and offshore regattas in New York and New England waters.  Last week, David sailed the Vineyard Race, an eighty-six year old 238 mile run from Stamford, Connecticut out around Plum Gut, rounds Buzzard Bay horn and heads back to Stamford.  This race takes most boats two days to complete.  After such a grueling schedule of sailing, it is a nice culmination of the sailing season to run the Liberty Cup as a one day event in David’s backyard.  Multiple design boats are invited to compete, thus attracting participating yacht clubs from down the Jersey shore out to the Long Island Sound.  The competitors are within an hour or two of reaching New York Harbor for the scheduled noontime start.

Liberty Cup Course is Spontaneously Determined by Harbor Winds and Currents

The Liberty Cup Race Committee boat anchored just south of the Statue of

Liberty in the Jersey Flats.  Aboard, the race organizer, Vicky Jo Neiner, begins her measurements and calculations to determine the starting line, the course, and the finish line.  The prevailing winds established the first round of races with the starting horn at 12:45.  The J/105s headed out on a northeast course direction extending toward Governor’s Island where the boats tacked to the northeast and back.

As the afternoon wore on, tricky winds shifted from the South-Southeast to the Southeast-East, changing the course direction of the third round of races.  The boats were directed out toward the Bay Ridge Flats in the Lower Bay, closer to the Verrazzano Narrows where they rounded the marker and tacked back toward the finish line.  Currents were of course a factor and as expected, the slack tide turned and the flood created interesting conditions.  The sound of skippers shouting instructions to their fully crewed boats off in the distance were heard prominently on the Race Committee boat throughout the day.  Needless to say, the races were spirited!

The Importance of a Seasoned Race Committee

With VHF radio in one hand and flagpoles in the other, Vicky Jo Neiner was responsible to accurately start and finish each division race.  Reliant on the volunteers who switched flags, blew the starting horns and whistles, posted the charts, coordinated the Zodiac marker buoy boat, and broadcast notifications of approaching mega-ton vessels, Vicky was the glue that made each race a success.  A professional working captain, Vicky has 50 years of maritime experience and an avid competitive sailor.  She is a member of US Sailing. Interesting fact: The Zodiac mark boat was donated by a local dive service company “Dive Tech” Owned and operated by John Pommerehn.

Assisting Vicky was Kelly McIntyre, the Statistician who calculated the handicaps and recorded the finish times of each boat.  Kelly is a member of the Liberty Yacht Club and crewed for David on Synergy at the 2020 Vineyard Race.

The Race Committee Boat Captain and Vice Commodore of Liberty Yacht Club, James Chambers, kept control of his Pearson trawler.  A lifelong seaman and veteran of multiple maritime occupations and vocations around New York Harbor, Jim Chambers knows everyone on the water who you might need to know when organizing a harbor event.  Everything from contact with local tug captains and especially those at the wheel of the Staten Island Ferry, all require professional courtesy and some finesse.

The Anticipated Hazards of the September 12th, 2020 Regatta.

Aside from the normal tug and barge traffic that fills New York Harbor, the steady passing of the Staten Island Ferries is always a challenge to the race participants in the harbor.  The sounding of the 5 horn blast from the captain’s wheelhouse is one to be avoided. The ferries did slow down as they approached the course area.  But today was marked by a historic occurrence in New York Harbor.  Her name is the CMA Brazil.  She was completed this year and is registered in Malta. Her voyage started from Sri Lanka, passed the Suez Canal, left Halifax Nova Scotia yesterday and became the largest Super Container ship to enter New York Harbor. Unbeknownst to all, the Brazil did not make the typical ninety degree turn into the Elizabeth Channel.  Prior to the ship’s scheduled berth at Port Elizabeth, a photo-op in front of the Statue of Liberty was arranged despite David’s notification to the Coast Guard of the regatta sailing zone.  Thanks to Captain Jim, who spoke directly to the USCG Vessel Command Center, the ship and the Moran tender tugs did slow down to allow the regatta racers to safely pass in front of the approaching vessels.

The 14:30 Trifecta

Despite Captain Jim’s best efforts to know every inch of activity in the harbor, a sudden unforeseen triad took shape in the middle of the race course.  As the Brazil was being towed back down the harbor from the Statue of Liberty flanked by the assigned three Moran tugs, the ship now sat idle in the middle of the regatta course.  Amidst helicopters, Coast Guard craft, and police boats, this stalled parade took center stage.  The unexpected event was complicated by a garbage barge emerging from the Constable Hook Reach, probably departing from Staten Island waste management facility.  And in the distance, the approaching Staten Island Ferry.  Convergence at one point created this incredible bottleneck.  From the top deck of the Race Committee Boat, it was like watching floating chess pieces moving into a global positioning chessboard.  This was much more than a 5 horn blast that we were warned about!

Capt Jim contacts the USCG vessel traffic service hoping that the duty officer’s could untangle the knot.  Captain Jim lowered his radio and said the Captain of the Brazil had ultimate say regarding control of the situation.  The race could have been shut down.  Vicki announced to the boats there was a temporary pause in the race.  The racers stared at the picture before them.  This was a historic moment crossing their paths.  We all sat watching acrobatic maneuvers of the triad of Moran tugs as the tremendous tow lines exaggerate the tension.  The majority of the boats turned into the wind to stop forward motion.  From the Committee Boat, the sailboats were suddenly idle.  What were the regatta racers thinking?  A forced pause to contemplate life?  Was this another layer to add onto he effects of Covid-19?  What would the future bring? Other more pragmatic thinkers holding onto a planned strategy to win this race?

Vicky holds the boats in position.  The Coast Guard duty officer holds the future of the Liberty Cup in his hand.  What is in the cards?  Thank goodness, a reassuring voice over Captain Jim’s VHF radio clearly speaks of a plan.  Once the garbage barge is well into the Narrows Channel, the Brazil will continue its relocation into the Lower Bay. The situation slowly resolved itself.  Jim instructs Vicky who instructs the racers that the regatta continues.

LIBERTY CUP REGATTA Race Results

In the One Design Division, eight J105s competed.  Varying wind conditions affected the outcome as rounding the markers found a lead boat loosing four positions within a minute’s time.  The J105 pack experienced varied results all taking turns for first in four races.  Jeremy Macan’s Hornet won the day, successfully placed either first or second in 3 out of the 4 races.

In the Spinnaker Division, Thunder, skippered by George Harrington, topped the class by taking first place in all three races for this division.  Aviato and Overlap jockeyed for 2nd and 3rd place finishes all day.

In the Non-Spinnaker Division, Mark Thorne’s Koinonia won first place in two of the three races.  Feng Shui placed second twice.

Synergy had a rough series of starts but ended on a high note with a 2nd place finish in the last race.

Looking forward to LIBERTY CUP REGATTA 2021

2021 will mark the 10th edition of the Liberty Cup Regatta. Expect to see the show go big with its traditional post-race BBQ, party and awards ceremony, and two days of racing. Like 2019 we expect 5 classes of boats with even more participants. We may even hit 50! 

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City Sail’s Director, Soo Kim, has assembled three former students to Captain the Class of 2020.  With covid-19, you can imagine the challenges of teaching 32 teens.   So the decision was to create a virtual classroom that the students would learn the basics on the City Sail YouTube channel.  Once the students learn the ropes online, they will be ready for small, safe groups to take their knowledge onto the boats and sail the harbor with the instructors at the helm.

New York Harbor Channel was fortunate enough to capture Soo and his instructors at the New City Kids facility in Jersey City as the virtual online videos were being produced.  The tutorial videos are currently being viewed by the students and their time to board the sailboats is fast approaching.   City Sail has one Colgate 26′ and the rest of the craft are donated by local boat owners who are happy to offer their time and resources.

Get to meet the sailing team and hear their pride as they tell their own personal success stories during our interviews.  You will be pleased to know that New City Kids all participate in their acclimated music program.  These sailors take their music on the water and the water feeds their inspiration to create musical compositions.   Take a listen!  If you happen to be around the harbor this month, don’t be surprised to hear a impromptu concert as the students tack their way into a bright, healthy future!

We wish you fair winds and following seas, Class of 2020!

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NYHC wants to take the opportunity to remember the 50 veterans that reportedly died in the Long Island nursing home. To date, there are more than 1000 veterans in VA health system sites that have been lost due to Covid-19 infections. Along with the veterans who are not getting the proper ceremonial honors at their burials due to Covid-19. However, hundreds of other veterans were lost in the state-run homes.  We ask, how many of these veterans would still be alive today if they were fast-tracked to USNS Comfort.  And for those who would have succumbed to the infection, how many would have been happier spending their final hours on the military hospital ship?  Of course, these are tough questions.

On this Memorial Day Observance, NYHC is honored to have Congressman and veteran Max Rose offer words of thanks to the crew of USNS Comfort.  A purple heart recipient, Max Rose served as a platoon leader in Afghanistan and was wounded there in 2013.  In addition to his representation of the 11th Congressional District from Brooklyn and Staten Island, he currently is attached to the New York Army National Guard for active duty.

NYHC is proud to have found men and women of distinction to help tell our Covid-19 New York story.  The time span of the documentary is from March 7th (the first covid deaths in NYC) to April 30th (when Comfort leaves NYC).   The key focal characters are Rachel Hartley, who answered the call for ICU nurses, sailing her temporary residence into New York Harbor and USNS Comfort’s Chaplain, Lt. Johnny Bravo.  There is a strong spirituality between the two, told from their respective ships.  The working New York Harbor personnel is represented by the Sandy Hook Pilot, Captain Tim Ferrie, who navigated Comfort into its NYC pier.  USNS Comfort’s Commander Amersbach offers his precise detail of the Hospital ship operations.

New York Harbor is in lock down for all passenger ship traffic.  The cruise ship industry ties NY waters to the oceans of the world.  We also touch on Erika Butters’ plight stuck on a Cruise Ship stranded in the Atlantic Ocean.   As Covid-19 tears apart careers and industries, Erika’s 56 day saga offers a musical therapy as she records a consistent daily post on Facebook from her ship.  Erika’s music offers uplifting melodies under our visual footage.  NYHC has taken the best of our interviews over the past two months to piece together this unique story.

Governor Cuomo and President Trump provide the Covid-19 reality as well as the backstory as to why Comfort was in NYC for only 30 days.  The hospital ship only treated 182 Covid patients over a mere 14 day period.  Despite the political tension that permeates the atmosphere, Comfort does exhibit its  marvelous medical deployment and staff acumen.  Not a single Covid-19 patient treated on-board was lost.

We conclude with shout outs from New Yorkers including one from  Congressman Max Rose.  With Comfort’s return to the Norfolk Naval Station, one missing element remains… a Mission Name.  We invite everybody who was touched both physically and spiritually to offer a name for the Navy Command to consider.  NYHC has chosen ‘Operation Gentle Shadow’ as its reach in dark times has brought calm and compassion to the waters of New York Harbor.

After USNS Comfort sailed out of New York Harbor, the torch had been passed to a visiting nurse from Lynchburg, Virginia and the hundreds of other healthcare workers like Rachel Hartley.  Of course, we cannot forget about the thousands of healthcare workers who started this battle when Covid-19 first entered the NYC hospital system back in February.  Departure day for the Comfort marked a significant Turning Point for New York.  The number of Covid-19 cases was slowly, but steadily on the decline.

NYHC wishes to take this opportunity to personally thank the men and women of the USNS Comfort for their service to the nation   The ship exemplified professionalism.  What’s more, the hospital ship also served as a ambassador.  It was indeed a Gentle Shadow that spread compassion from the waterfront to all the New York and New Jersey front line workers.   As you sailed out of the harbor, you took your excellence with you to serve on another mission.  For New York, Operation Gentile Shadow will live on as a shining light that helped bring us out of the unknown darkness.  We wish you fair winds and following seas!

For more in depth articles and interviews found in New York Harbor Channel, please click below

Commander Amersbach

Captain Tim Ferrie

Erika Monet Butters

Nurse Rachel Hartley

Chaplain Johnny Bravo

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Here in New York, Captain Nitzan Levy is offering her expertise to promote initiatives focusing on young women who have an interest in learning to sail in New York’s waters.  Nitzan, a social entrepreneur who started her cruising club in the NY Harbor 7 years ago actively participates as a competitive sailor.  She is no stranger to off-shore sailing regattas.

Nitzan has been influenced by many women before her and she will be celebrating some of their efforts in this month’s series on Women Who Sail. For one, Tracy Edwards will be recognized this month in a series of interviews published over the next eight weeks.

Tracy Edwards’ all-female crew of Maiden won her a berth in the history books.  The 2019 documentary, ‘Maiden’ poignantly depicts the story of how Tracy found the yacht, assembled the crew, and endured the race as a finalist in the Whitbread Around the World Race in 1989.  Her passion is worthy of inclusion as a celebrated sports representative.

Nitzan and the New York Harbor Channel preludes the arrival of The Maiden Factor to New York Harbor.  You can learn more about Tracy Edward’s history and new foundation by following us here.

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