Whether you're on the water regularly or live near it, you tend to hear the sound of five short whistle blasts -- signifying "Imminent Collision!" -- more often these days. As New York Harbor becomes more congested, especially in the warmer months when sailors, swimmers, paddlers, jet-skiers and rowers take to the water in droves, concerns about collisions and capsizing are intensifying.


How to make the waterways safer? The boating community is divided on the answer. While both the working waterfront and the recreational boating community call for better education of those who handle boats, they part ways on the question of more stringent regulation.

Ed Kelly, executive director of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey, says it's "criminal" that anyone over 18 in New York can operate a recreational vessel without a license. "Educate, regulate and enforce," he advised the NYC Council's Waterfronts Committee on April 30 at an oversight hearing on "Rules of the Road, Boating Safety and Cooperation in New York City Waters."

He was countered by Rob Buchanan, president of the Village Community Boathouse, who urged committee chair Michael Nelson to "resist the urge to impose new regulations and declare parts of the waterways off limits to human-powered boaters."

Mr. Nelson is taking action on other fronts to make the waterways safer. He is planning to introduce legislation that would raise initial fines for boaters from $25 to $250, and subsequent fines from $100 to $1,000. After hearing the Commanding Officer of the NYPD Harbor Unit, David Driscoll, agree with Mr. Kelly about the need to require a license to operate a boat, Mr. Nelson and Council member Peter Vallone, Jr., who heads the Safety Committee, agreed to introduce new legislation on this topic as well.

Two related bills are pending in the NY State legislature. In the State Assembly, Rep. Sandy Galef has sponsored a bill, A05889, that "requires boating safety certificates of all persons operating a mechanically propelled vessel; provides exception in the case of new owners and certain renters; provides for a phase in period and penalties for violations." Its counterpart in the Senate is S5752.

Some testifying at the Council hearing discussed the importance of No Wake Zones. The NYC Parks Dept. enforces a No Wake Zone on the Harlem River and "alerts boaters to wake reduction rules for Orchard Beach Lagoon in the Bronx, Great Kills Harbor in Staten Island and speed limits when within city marinas, near beach bathing areas and other waterfront locations," said Keith Kerman, Assistant Commissioner for Operations for the Parks Dept.

The U.S. Coast Guard also enforces wake regulations. About 18 months ago, the Coast Guard conducted a Port and Waterways Safety Assessment -- PAWSA, for short -- of New York Harbor and adjacent waters. PAWSA participants, 30 in all, included commercial and industrial maritime stakeholders such as Mr. Kelly, Pat Kinnier from McAllister Towing, Bob Glas from Bouchard Transportation, Hank Mahlmann from the Sandy Hook Pilots and many others; representatives from the recreational maritime world such as Morty Berger from the Manhattan Island Foundation and consultant Ray Fusco; participants, like Carter Craft (formerly with the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA)), who straddle both worlds; and representatives from regulatory agencies.

"What the PAWSA found was that we had many conflicts," Mr. Kelly told the City Council's Waterfronts Committee. In its report, the PAWSA group identified risks (such as congestion, water movement and traffic mix), general strategies (such as enforcement and voluntary training) and specific actions (such as communications to boaters to stay out of the way of large vessels).

In short, "recreational boaters cannot be in deep water channels," said Mr. Kelly, who said the largest commercial vessels have half-mile blind spots. "It is incumbent on people to stay out of the way."

Mr. Buchanan had a different take. "The Harbor is public space," he told the committee a few minutes later. "This has to be the default position."

Mr. Fusco, maritime consultant, founder of the Mayor's Cup kayak championships and member of the Steering Committee for the Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations Committee, Port of NY & NJ, also presented testimony. He described projects to improve Harbor safety: Captains and Paddlers Day, an annual meeting of ferry captains, recreational boaters and marine security agencies to discuss education and safety; the Harbor Mapping Project sponsored by the Coast Guard that tracks basic patterns of ferries, dredging projects, industrial maritime routes, recreational boating clusters, and other movement in New York Harbor to determine the most conflicted areas; and the Mariners Guide to the NY/NJ Harbor, a safe boating video funded by the NJ Dept. of Transportation that is now in production. "The members of the maritime community are working hard to educate and promote safe boating in this mixed use harbor," he said.
















Nancy Brous from the NYC Water Trail Association, advocated for "organization, education and, above all, open lines of communication and mutual respect amongst all harbor users, industrial, commercial and recreational."

"Finding ways for the recreational and working waterfronts to co-exist is a do-able challenge," said Roland Lewis, MWA president. "The community should be able to create maps for general usage and rules of the road. They're all navigable waterways but common sense should prevail where there's heavy shipping."

Reached a few days later in his office, Capt. Hank Mahlmann, president of the NY Sandy Hook Pilots (his NJ counterpart is Capt. Andrew McGovern), the group of mariners that guides incoming and outgoing vessels through the traffic, rocks, reefs, and shoals on New York Harbor, had the last comment. "It's the rule of gross tonnage," he laughed. "If it's bigger than you, get out of the way."

Then he grew serious. "I believe that everybody has a right to share the waterfront, but then would you let your kid ride his bicycle on the FDR Drive? I've had the experience of being the pilot on a cruise ship and not seeing kayakers until I was right on top of them. We constantly worry about that. Recreational boaters don't understand that their intentions can't always be comprehended."

"Most of the problems are solved if you educate the small boater," he continued. "I believe there are already plenty of rules in effect -- and they can't enforce those rules, so making more unenforceable rules wouldn't work. Education of the small boating community is the best we can do." (back to top)

The FDNY Marine Fleet is responsible for more than 450 miles of New York shoreline and has protected NYC residents for 134 years. (back to top)