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| From Bird Returns |
Bird flew her coop at the Brooklyn Navy Yard yesterday to return to home base at Pier 40 in preparation for the annual Village Community Boathouse Youth Race on Saturday. Bird has been the centerpiece of VCB’s Community Rowing Program at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Click on the thumbnail below for more photos:
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| Bird Returns |
by
Brian Tong
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| From Row to the Narrows |
This Labor Day, a crew of nine departed Pier 40 on the King Tide bound for The Narrows. Starting at 8:30 AM and arriving at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at around 11:15, we caught the ebb, making for a speedy and surprisingly easygoing journey. Oddly, boat traffic in Upper New York Bay was relatively light, though it may have only felt that way because we made sure to steer clear of shipping channels when possible. Hugging the Brooklyn coastline from Red Hook to Fort Hamilton, we took in great views of Sunset Park’s industrial waterfront, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the lower reaches of the Upper New York Bay, and Fort Wadsworth from perspectives that can only be experienced on the water.
Passing the Verrazano on the Staten Island side, we circled Hoffman Island, a man-made island originally used to quarantine immigrants now re-purposed as a bird sanctuary. We then beached at the Fort Wadsworth campgrounds around noon to take a two hour lunch break (involving a 20 minute walk to a deli since everything else was closed).
The only tricky part of the whole journey was the launch from the campgrounds. After doing the default backing-out launch, large waves quickly broadsided us back onto the beach. At Marcel’s suggestion, we launched bow first. The increased power from rowing forward away from the beach (as opposed to backwatering out) did the trick, and we were on our way.
Thanks to the prevailing SW winds, the full flood tide, and a fully re-energized crew, we arrived back at Pier 40 around 4:45 to a barbecue manned by Frank and Dave Clayton. In all, the trip was roughly 22 miles, only 8 miles short of the route of our annual fundraiser held last month, the Row Around Manhattan. All in all, it was a fun row, and definitely worth waking up at 5:30 AM for.
Click on the thumbnail below for more photos:
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| Row to the Narrows |
Don’t miss the movies:
By
Brian Tong
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| From LSP |
The King Tide, Pete Seeger, and Quixotic left the boathouse at 12:15 PM with 18 aboard–7, 6, and 5 respectively. The fleet arrived at Liberty State Park at 2 PM. The King Tide crew attempted to beach at the jetty near the Liberty State Park office 0.6 miles from the diner, but found that it was quite rocky and there was insufficient space for the three boats. Luckily, Pete Seeger found a secure floating dock within a 5 min walk from the diner. Since we had to queue up ourselves to dock on it, they went into the diner first as the Quixotic and King Tide crews watched the boat, and vice versa when the Quixotic and Tide crews ate. After that, we paid Port Liberté a visit.
Seeger, having people who needed to be off the water earlier, left before King Tide and Quixotic did, so they did their round by Port Liberté first and came back to Pier 40 at 5:15.
Tide and Quixotic stayed around the general area of Liberty State Park adjacent to Liberty and Ellis Islands after visiting Port Liberté before heading back to Pier 40 at 6:30 with a SSE tailwind in the mid 10s.
By Marcel Dejean and Paul Caviano
Photos by Michael Anton
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| From Voyage to Newtown Creek |
The Queens shore of Newtown Creek — relics of an industrial past provide a scenic backdrop for boaters
Newtown Creek Row
by Marcel Dejean
Yesterday VCB rowed out to Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens. We left Pier 40 at 11:45am with Paul, Robert, Pat, Deborah, and me in the Bird, Frank, Michael, Nancy, Margaret, and Hans in the GML, and Joe in the sliding-seat wherry. We arrived at the creek at 1:15pm, 45 minutes *ahead* of schedule. That’s an average of almost 4 knots!
On Newton Creek we visited the North Brooklyn Boat Club, which has a cool, DIY-oriented space by the Pulaski Bridge. We rowed the length of the creek, all the way down the twisty English Kills. Nancy and Deborah got a chance to try the wherry, then when Joe got back in it, he rocketed down the creek and down to the Navy Yard against the flooding East River, an hour and a half faster than the rest of us.
After rowing the length of the creek, we went down to the Navy Yard, where we dropped off the Bird for Rob to use for the Banneker High School rowing program. Frank, Michael, Margaret, Hans, Robert, and me got in the GML to row back to Pier 40 down the East River and against a weakly ebbing Hudson. We arrived back at Pier 40 at 7:25pm.
Huge shoutout to Rob Kellerman, whose arms may fall off tomorrow from all the rowing he did.
Did anyone get any pictures of the flourescent yellow-green water?
Until next time,
Marcel
Comments:
“An awesome day on the water, and total kudos to Marcel for his meticulous planning.”
Michael Anton
“I’d like to second mike’s kudos to Marcel and pass along my thanks for a great day on the water. I’ve been showing off my blisters to co-workers all week.”
Paul Caviano
Newtown Creek Row
by Paul Caviano
On Sunday, April 26th VCB went on an early-season extended row to Newtown Creek, which separates Brooklyn and Queens on the East River. The nominal reason was to visit a fellow boating organization, the North Brooklyn Boat Club, on the occasion of their “SHORE: Feast” community outreach event, but the participants may also have been looking for an excuse to log some miles and shake off the winter rust.
We left Pier 40 at 11:45 A.M. under Marcel Dejean’s able leadership. The eleven rowers were split between two gigs — Paul, Robert, Pat, Deborah, and Marcel in Bird; Frank, Michael, Nancy, Margaret, and Hans in the GML; and Joe, free spirit that he is, rowing solo in the wherry. Conditions were near-perfect: clear skies, mid-60s temperature, the gentlest of breezes, and virtually chop-free water. With such great conditions and eager crews, we arrived at the creek at 1:15 P.M.
Once in Newton Creek we made a stop at the North Brooklyn Boat Club, located on the south shore just under the Pulaski Bridge. The club members were setting up for their event, but took time to help their VCB visitors get securely docked and show us around their facility. The club occupies a long rectangle of space running adjacent to a commercial building. Amenities include a fire pit, an area with picnic tables, and a number of shipping containers repurposed for equipment storage, on-going water quality testing areas, and so on. Overall, the club has a funky and functional space that proves once again what can be done with sweat equity and imagination.
Our group broke into ones and twos to explore the site and pursue their particular focus areas of interest. Examples: Mike quickly introduced himself to most of the club members, no doubt sharing a pirate story or two and a bit of the underappreciated history of trash management in NYC; Frank carefuly examined the cleverly home-made floating dock, with below-water access for the club’s water quality experiments; and Pat scored a glass of red wine.
After the tour the mini fleet continued upstream. We rowed the full length of the creek for the next two hours, all the way down the English Kills and back. Along the way we took in the sights: old warehouses, beer distributors (closed, unfortunately), scrap metal yards, commercial vehicle storage yards (discovering where all those Fresh Direct delivery trucks sleep when they’re off-duty), and the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the city’s largest, marked by eight huge stainless-steel digester “eggs” and thankfully odor-free today. The sanitation department’s website notes the structure has won awards for its design, proving once again that in New York it always pays to look good, no matter your purpose in life. And we took stock of the bridges above: Pulaski, Greenpoint Avenue, Kosciusko, Metropolitan Avenue, and Grand Avenue. Other than some waves and hellos from pedestrians and bikers crossing the smaller bridges, we didn’t pass many people, since much of the creek is walled off from the city by the commercial properties that surround it. Hopefully that changes over time.
After exploring the creek end to end, the group made a second brief stop at North Brooklyn Boat Club where the party was in full-swing — wine and seafood on the menu, lots of kids running around having fun, and community paddling in full swing on two very large canoes carrying twelve people at a time. One canoe tried to overtake the Bird but the VCB boat was the faster vessel — at least for today.
At about 5 P.M. it was time to head for home with the ebbing current. The gigs went down to the Navy Yard where we dropped off the Bird for it’s spring assignment with Rob’s Banneker High School rowing program. After securing the Bird and sending half of the group off to the nearby “F” train, the “A” team of Frank, Michael, Margaret, Hans, Robert, and Marcel pushed off to row back to Pier 40. They needed to hustle to beat an ebbing Hudson and a sinking sun, and as Marcel notes in his post they did so in good form, getting back just at sundown. Well done
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| From A of SR 2014 |
On Saturday, August 23rd, rowers from Village Community Boathouse with lots of help from the Betts Clan of Rhode Island rowed from Providence to Newport, a 30 mile voyage, in less than 8 hours, setting a new record. This was the first time that the A of SR row across Narragansett Bay was completed in one day. The NE wind helped a lot. The row is a reenactment of a voyage by Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, who in 1670 at the age of 70 rowed in an open boat from Providence to Newport to engage some Quakers in a debate about religion.(See below for details.) It took Roger Williams about 18 hours to complete his journey.
Special Thanks to Don & Martha, Curtis, Mary & Irene Betts for feeding, housing, driving, launching, providing safety boats and putting up with us once again.
Back Story
by Don Betts
Roger Williams (1603 -1683) was an American Protestant theologian, and the first American proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. He was a student of Indian languages and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans. Roger Williams made himself not welcome just about everywhere he wentexcept among the natives but in the founding of Rhode Island the important thing to keep in mind is that he got off on arguing religion and making sure that religion was kept out of politics. Newport and Providence or Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, or the term popular in the mid 1600s was Rouges Island, were exceptions in New England in that people were not jailed or maimed or executed or run off for their religion or lack of it. Williams had left England because of the mixing of the royalty and the church that changed back and forth between pope and non pope ideas depending on who lost their heads.
Arriving in Boston the people there were happy at first to welcome a young recent college graduate minister. He moved on to Salem then south to Plymouth and then back to Boston and maybe Salem again. At each place they got tired of him trying to separate church and state so he left for East Providence late fall but that was still part of the Massachusetts colony so he crossed the river to Providence and spent the winter with the natives there who were more
hospitable to guests than those of European background. He wrote a book, “A Key to the Language of America” about the Indian language and culture published in London in 1643. Then about 1670 or so George Fox came to the other end of the bay, so the rowing and digging start.
George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691), the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers. visited New England in 1672. Being more discreet than others of his sect, he went only to Rhode Island, avoiding Connecticut and Massachusetts. Roger Williams, who denied the pretensions to spiritual enlightenment, challenged Fox to disputation. Before the challenge was received, Fox had departed,but three of his disciples at Newport accepted it. Williams went there in an open boat, 30 miles from Providence, and, though over seventy years of age, rowed the vessel himself. After his 18 hour row to Newport he spent three days, Saturday Monday and Tuesday but not Sunday debating with three Quakers. Williams Wrote to George and George’s assistant or cohort Mr. Burrowes the 14 points about “Digging the Fox out of his Burrowes”. an account of the three days’ disputation, which at times was a tumultuous quarrel; to which Fox replied in a pamphlet entitled, “A New England Firebrand Quenched” and “The Arrogance of Self Rightousness”. Neither was sparing in sharp epithets..
From what I’ve read of these things the titles are the best part.
