Street Seens: The 2016 Parade that Set Sail in 1844
09/04/2016
On the first Sunday of August 2016, I made my way to the cul de sac at East 72nd Street to catch a glimpse of a parade that set off in 1844 and was scheduled to pass my viewing point around 10 that morning. For such a rare sight there were very few members of my urban village gathered to watch. But then, there are so many rarities and amazements in our every day. And many of them free to behold.
But first, let me answer the predictable questions in your mind: no it was not the passing of a ghost ship. And no, I wasn’t watching it courtesy of a time machine.
I had come to wave at some neighbors participating in the New York Yacht Club’s (NYYC) 160th cruise from New York City to Newport, RI, with additional stops in Oyster Bay on Long Island, Thimble Islands, CT, Fishers Island off the southeast coast of Connecticut, and Block Island, RI. Because one of those neighbors is as good a photographer as she is a sailor, you can join me here for a few visual/virtual highlights of one of New York’s continuing legends.
The annual custom began in 1844 and, accounting for this year’s being marked as the 160th, there were a few historic interruptions. The website of NYYC lists those as the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the assassination of New York Senator Robert Kennedy.
For the week that began this August 7, the participants were 137 yachts that traveled from harbor to harbor, stopping each night at a different location, living on the water. My neighbors explained to this landlubber that the yachts are rafted to each other, or to a mother ship, that provides them with meals, beverages, showers, laundry, clean towels, and other amenities the sea itself does not provide. Dinghies were their point to point transportation.
Some of the photos I saw when they were able to transmit them included two large buildings on green lawns, both of them iconic yacht clubs. The first in Oyster Bay and the second the NYYC’s “home port” in Newport. The modern house on Fishers Island, is owned by the Armstrong family. A friend of my neighbors arranged for them to visit that home’s spectacular gardens. So they had an additional “up close and personal” experience of the twin glories of land and sea.
From my vantage point on 72nd Street, I could not guess all the adventures that lay in store for the “sailors.” And because I was at a high point on land as the first vessels passed, I could not tell whether these neighbors could see me and some fellow urban villagers waving them off. (They could, and did.)
I had been told that the parade that started at the end of “my” island and made its initial way up the East River was arranged with a careful plan to accommodate sailing vessels, smaller and larger vessels capable of using either sail or motorized travel. Since the East River is a salt water tidal estuary with strong currents, all began the parade using motors. In fact, the U.S. Coast Guard requires all boats: sailboats, even canoes and kayaks, to use their engines, motors that allow them to travel at a speed of at least five miles per hour while navigating that river.
To my amazement, a large barge of the sort one sees every day on this river blocked my view as it made its way in the opposite direction, creating what I could only guess was a significant challenge for some of the parade’s smaller vessels.
But one of the things I learned from my “day at the parade” is that sailors are a hardy lot. And I learned too that I want to learn more of the venerable NYYC. I hope we can explore its history as portrayed in the unique West 44th Street Club House with its Beaux-Arts architecture featuring repeated images of a yacht’s stern, its art treasures, and relationship to the iconic America’s Cup.
All photos by Maureen C. Koeppel. Parade map by Brad Dellenbaugh