# God Forbid we use our Lectra San - The downside of New York City marinas



## Pamlicotraveler (Aug 13, 2006)

We have been in NYC at the 79th St. Boat Basin for a week. It is on the west side of the Island - on the Hudson. It is very convenient to Manhattan and has a lot of great things. It's beautiful but also gets disgusting at times. First the disgusting:



















Not to mention that we are resting on 2 feet of soft mud at low tide. We don't run the AC or pump in water for the heads. We are using the shower head to pump in fresh water rarther than pull the muddy stuff into the toilet bowl. We don't want dirty our holding tanks 

We have a Lectra San (Lectra/San waste treatment system kills coliform bacteria in sewage meeting U.S.C.G./EPA Type I standards for legal overboard discharge) which we are sending to our holding tank since this is a no-discharge area. But for the good of the environment they should PAY US to use our lectra san here. There is no question we would be cleaning their waters. That is the obsurdity of the laws regarding discharge of a type 1 (Lectra San etc).

Now for the good side of a New York Marina:










The good outweighs the bad, but I really wish New York City would clean up its waters.


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## wind_magic (Jun 6, 2006)

Nice view!

What's it like being on a boat there, in general ? Are there a lot of things nearby to go and see, museums or shows or anything like that ? Do you have a subway stop near you ? 

Must be fun being there in NYC. I have not ever been there any great length of time and always thought it would be a fun place to visit.


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## bubb2 (Nov 9, 2002)

Dear Pam, Yonkers's NY is just 15 miles up river from you. Anytime there is a rain fall over 2 inches they start discharging raw sewage in to the river. "can't handle the over flow" a million gallons a day. Thought you should know!


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## Danny33 (Nov 21, 2007)

Old Old Home Sweet Home !

Way too many in one place .....mother nature will always have to take a back seat !

Sad but the truth of the matter.


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

Pamlico, you must be a youngster, or come from a very far away place. The fact is, NYC HAS CLEANED UP ITS WATERS. In fact, they have been cleaned up so well in the past 40 years or so, that we now have major problems with teredo or similar infestations that have destroyed many wooden pier pilings. Parts of the East Side Drive had to be re-piled, Hudson piers have needed major repairs...and walking on the water has become much harder than it used to be. 

Are there still problems, sure. The runoff from storms still cascades into the sewage system and overflows things, and the whole Hudson washes things down, but they are still working on improving things. There are triathalons and swims encircling Manhattan Island, and even the folks who haven't gotten shots have survived.

Don't knock that mud, it is the only thing that keeps some of the oldtimers at 79th street from sinking! (sigh)


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## bubb2 (Nov 9, 2002)

Every thing that Hello says is correct. I am active in the river keepers program. There are oysters on piles in the harbor. We were surprised to see them. They would not have been there just a few years ago. They are a indicator species. Things are getting better. But the sooner, the better!


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## Pamlicotraveler (Aug 13, 2006)

hellosailor said:


> There are triathalons and swims encircling Manhattan Island, and even the folks who haven't gotten shots have survived.
> 
> Don't knock that mud, it is the only thing that keeps some of the oldtimers at 79th street from sinking! (sigh)


I saw a guy windsurfing right here at the marina yesterday. He wasn't a very good windsurfer either, which made it even more disgusting. He fell in several times and if he doesn't get hepatitis I'd be shocked. He was windsurfing in a marina with liveaboard boats and no pump out facilities. That's no place for windsurfing.

I know NYC has been cleaned up, and I never sailed here in the 70's. I have no doubt the water is better, but I promise you there is a tremendous amount of debris coming and going with the tide. When you have pilings floating up and down the river it's a problem. And as you see in my pictures, the accumulated garbage is really nasty. It'll never be the Pamlico Sound, but it could be much improved.There really should be some active cleanup patrol with nets or scoops to get up the debris. A few boats cleaning the Hudson and East Rivers 24 hours a day could do wonders for the water.

Another pollution issue we noticed in the Long Island Sound and even in the Atlantic is mylar helium party balloons. They are a real hazard to boaters - I was concerned if we missed going around one of these it could be sucked into the intake. We saw them way offshore and sometimes the radar would pick them up. But there were alot of these and they are a danger to the wildlife. People don't realize they can travel 100 miles or more.


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## Pamlicotraveler (Aug 13, 2006)

wind_magic said:


> Nice view!
> 
> What's it like being on a boat there, in general ? Are there a lot of things nearby to go and see, museums or shows or anything like that ? Do you have a subway stop near you ?
> 
> Must be fun being there in NYC. I have not ever been there any great length of time and always thought it would be a fun place to visit.


Wind Magic...despite the caveats about the water quality, NYC is the coolest place to sail. Our boat is going to need a good cleaning when we get out of here, but it will be totally worth it. Where we are there is a subway stop about 3 blocks away, and so we have been enjoying the sights and shows and of course the restaurants. We saw the great Macy's fireworks show on the East River for the 4th (we were at the UN).

I think New York is an exciting cruising spot. Just watch the water while you're in it.

Sailing by the Statue of Liberty a few days ago was probably an all time sailing highlight. It says something about our country that we are free to do something like that. We were heading North on a downwind (wind from the south) run from Staten Island and right by the Statue of Liberty. There were helicopters, ferries, freighters, barges, tugs - all of this noise and energy all together, and we were sailing with jib only, right by Liberty Island. I was prepared to start the engine at any time, but I never had to.

It was a special day.


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

"There really should be some active cleanup patrol with nets or scoops to get up the debris. "
They've been here for something like 20-25 years. Two or three special boats, IIRC from the US Army Corp of Engineers, that look like catamaran fishing trawlers with a huge scoop/net up front. All they do is scoop up debris.
The problem is, we've got the street debris from 8-10 million locals plus another 5-10 million shore-dwellers in the same watershed, and every time it rains or the wind kicks up, every bit of trash blows into the harbor. After heavy storms, we'll get trees and houses coming down the Hudson--just like Huck Finn, except *whole* houses are a bit rarer for us.

No pump-out at 79th street? And it is a zero discharge area? I never looked into it that closely but can't see how that adds up. The waiting list for residential dockage there is, literally, decades long if they haven't simply closed it by now.


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## Pamlicotraveler (Aug 13, 2006)

hellosailor said:


> No pump-out at 79th street? And it is a zero discharge area? I never looked into it that closely but can't see how that adds up.


Their price list says "Sanitation Waste System Pump Out - Commercial vessels only." So I'm not sure what that means. I assumed that meant they would bring in a boat for the pumpout of a commercial vessel. The Hudson River is an EPA designated ―No Discharge Area. The only New York State pumpout is at Dyckman Marina which is in the 200's block. So it makes me wonder how those houseboats that look like they have never moved handle it.


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## papazulu (Jan 11, 2008)

Boy do I miss Boating in NY waters. I've been retired from NYC for 20 years and living in the south bay of San Fran. near the grandkids. One of our favorite things to do would be to launch a kayak or my friends Snipe sailboat from Dobbs Ferry on the Hudson River . The village is afew towns north of NYC. We would sail or kayak over to the Palisades on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. We would beach the boat at the foot of a waterfall coming off of the Palisades(not too well known).A long time ago it was common for NY City folks to come here and use the fresh water to relax in cement pools. The hike up the trail to the top was exciting. A little ways north on the river on the New Jersey side was aVillage called Piermont. It was set back from the Hudson by a swampy bayou of tall marsh reeds. You could get lost in its snaking around to the village. May remind you of the ICW. You are always going to get flotsam and jetsam in any big harbor. Going across the Hudson , besides dodgeing barge traffic you also had to keep an eye out for floating pileings or tree branches.Thinking you can just scoop them up and have much of an effect is like cleaning a beach of seaweed.The next tide deposits just as much. Enjoy NY .I wish I was back there for the Summer. PAPA


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## jimmalkin (Jun 1, 2004)

Pam - Don't know your plans, but if 79th St is getting to you, you might look at Liberty Landing Marina across the Hudson in Jersey City and at the latitude of the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan. We stay there each year from March - June and Sept to Nov/Dec. The view of Manhattan is terrific, there is a 5 minute ferry ride that leaves every 1/2 hour AND as the marina is on a creek, there is almost no harbor surge. We tried other places up and down the Hudson but the surge ranged from uncomfortable to dangerous. FYI. Oh yeah - they have a pump out boat and a facility at the fuel dock.


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## speciald (Mar 27, 2007)

How has your Lectrasan been working? I had to replace the electrodes on mine last year at ~$300 and before we left the caribbean the second set seems to be going. We use it all Winter in the islands and not at all in the Cheasapeake during the Summer. Tried rinsing w/ muriatic acid with no improvement.


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## CalebD (Jan 11, 2008)

PamlicoTraveler,
As a resident of NYC I am glad to hear that you had a good time on your cruise and overnights in the city. You picked a good time to come as the July 4th fireworks are pretty special - I hate to think of how much the show costs but with millions of people to entertain the budget is pretty large. Since I have lived in NYC since my 20's I am a bit blah-zay about fireworks as they seem to shoot them off for any occasion. 
I have also traversed Manhattan a few times and have remarked on the number of huge timbers, pilings, tree trunks that seem to be waiting for their moment of fame while holing some cruiser. I am glad to hear that they do some collecting of flotsam but the stuff in the water by your boat is inevitable as the river meets the sea. I keep my 27' sailboat moored about 1/4 mile from shore at Nyack on the Hudson (about 25 nm north of the Battery) and we have had what could only be described as tree trunks hitting our boat in the river. 
The sad thing about the Lectra-San is that when we had the northeast regional blackout a few years back they dumped millions of gallons of raw sewage right into the river at 125th street. I know this because my wife and I took a curtailed walk along the river that day in the heat and the smell convinced us to leave.
I have been in the Hudson to swim and to clean my prop from barnacles at Nyack. The water is not really clear and we need more oysters and filter feeders to help clean the silt out of the water. The underwater visibility there was about 1 foot. I guess the same can be said of the Chesapeake estuary since the oyster population has been decimated there as well.
A personal observation on Liberty Landing Marina is that there used to be (and probably still is) a bar right across the creek that would blast loud music well into the night that made that location less than ideal IMHO. I was there on 2 separate weekends and the noise lasted well past midnight. The views from there and the convenience factor are nice though it is not cheap. 79th street sounds like a decent place to stay.


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## Pamlicotraveler (Aug 13, 2006)

Jimm-We had considered Liberty Landing and it looks great in the pics. We had planned on either that or Staten Island, but ended up choosing the convenience of the 79th. It is a cool place. We did move to a deeper slip by the way/

Specd - We haven't had that trouble with our LS. It has been pretty much trouble free. I have done the muriatic treatment a couple of times, and I use gallons of vinegar, but so far haven't had to replace the electrodes or the blades.


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

Caleb, you'll never get "good" visibility up the Hudson Estuary that way. First, because you are on a tidal estuary, not a river, so everything gets churned up twice a day by the tide. And that includes all the dirt and silt being scoured off the land into the Hudson--which is pretty much the same reason the Mississippi gets called "the big Muddy". You can have pristine pure water--that's dead. Or good water that's just full of algae blooms from nutrient runoff, and silt from the shore. Considering that all the the Catskills are an eroded plateau (not Mountains, no) and all that erosion is going into the Hudson...I suspect one foot of visibility IS good. For there.


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## CalebD (Jan 11, 2008)

Hellosailor, thanks for the input which all makes sense. I grew up on a harbor off the sound in the 70's and there were probably worse water quality issues into the 80's when there was massive fish kills due to eutrophication (low or now oxygen in the water). The sea gulls and water fowl could not eat all the dead fish lining the shore. The western Sound seems quite a bit better now and I have been swimming in it and can see the bottom through about 8' of depth (which I couldn't as a teenager IIRC).
The Hudson Estuary is newer to me although I have lived by it's mouth in Manhattan for the last 10 years. There have been some hot, hot days that I have just wanted to jump in to cool off if only for a few seconds but there are no beaches anymore in Manhattan. 
I was just sailboat racing tonight up at Nyack, NY and there are still fish breaking the surface (I suspect carp) so this is probably a good indication of the water's health as well. The river does not smell bad while sailing on it or once I have jumped in but it is a little creepy to think that there is a nuke plant warming up the water and my memories of effluent going out with the tide in the last big regional blackout. So sad.
I believe that there are some communities that still rely on the Hudson for their drinking water as well. Are you with the Riverkeeper organization? I miss Robert Gainer's helpful advice and would consider helping out.
Catskills not mountains? It is true. NY has some interesting geology.
Barnacles on my prop are another indicator that the water is pretty healthy.
All the best.


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