Dock Update: Yes we Can(dock)!

Candock floating a car. Yeah, it can handle our kayaks.  :)

Candock floating a car. Yeah, it can handle our kayaks. 🙂

Our plans for purchasing a used dock from the Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club chanced on a sprinkling of Murphy’s Law: donations to our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor (Earth Day New York) were returned because of an address change. During that delay while they were being mailed again, the old dock was sold instead to the LIC Community Boathouse (a group founded earlier by Erik Baard, HarborLAB’s founder). May it be used safely and happily by adults recreating there.

HarborLAB will instead purchase a modern, modular Candock with a recent sponsorship from TF Cornerstone, which is developing part of the LIC waterfront. Thank you TF Cornerstone! We look forward to launching exciting educational tours, filled with residents and especially CUNY students, from our Hunters Point South district dock in May.

Volunteers who became among the first to grow HarborLAB previously assembled this kind of modular dock at Governors Island two years ago, in preparation for City of Water Day. It’s durable, easy to assemble, and safe. Our plan is to start small, at 8′ by 14’3″, with an additional stabilizing perimeter. This is adequate for our relatively small throughput of paddlers (typically groups of fewer than 20, with only three people on a dock at once) and we can add modules as HarborLAB grows!

A Candock module.

A Candock module.

HarborLAB Acquires a Dock!

HarborLAB's dock at its current Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club home. HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Erickson seated, YRPC Commodore John Maggiotto in waders.

HarborLAB’s dock at its current Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club home. HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Menje Erickson seated, YRPC Commodore John Maggiotto in waders. Lovely Hudson River and Palisades in background. Photo by Erik Baard.

HarborLAB’s first season is closing with continued burgeoning growth. We agreed with Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club to purchase its dock as that storied organization (over a century of paddling tales!) upgrades and expands. HarborLAB Facilities Manager Patricia Menje Erickson will oversee the refurbishing of the dock, which floats level, has new floats, and is decked with durable recycled plastic timber. We’re very grateful to NRG Energy and TF Cornerstone for their renewed sponsorships, which will make this work possible. We’ll also have budget transportation of the dock from the Hudson River to Hunters Point. We’re also grateful to YPRC and its Commodore John Maggiotto for this arrangement to foster our safe growth.

We will move the dock to our launch in November.

The dock is among those built through a program coordinated by Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance in 2000, under the direction of Carter Craft.