1 hour ago
3
Oar you kidding?
A historic vessel owned by a company that turns ships into floating restaurants mysteriously sank beneath Brooklyn waters — just days after a schooner-turned-bar met a similar fate.
The Victory Chimes — the last surviving Chesapeake Ram schooner and a US National Historic Landmark — was discovered on the floor of the Henry Street Basin near Red Hook sometime Sunday.
The 126-year-old boat’s giant masts were still sticking straight out of the polluted waters — directly next to those of the Pilot, which mysteriously sank in the middle of the night just days earlier July 1.
The incidents came as other historic ships from across the globe converged in the connected New York Harbor over Fourth of July weekend for America’s 250th anniversary.
“I was in shock. I could not believe that after Pilot sinking — and all the attention on the issue — that more had not been done to ensure that Victory Chimes would not sink,” Brad Vogel, of the Gowanus Dredgers, told The Post.
“It really felt like something had gone wrong here. One vessel sinking, maybe it’s a fluke. A second vessel sinking — I don’t know,” Vogel, who reported the sinkings on social media, said.
Both vessels are owned by Crew, which has turned numerous historic ships into floating restaurants throughout the city, including the Fireboat in Brooklyn Bridge Park and Grand Banks in Hudson River Park.
The out-of-commission historic ships were being moored in the basin while awaiting restoration, and each of their wooden hulls had been visibly deteriorating, according to Vogel.
“I all did tie back to what we had been somewhat worried about as we were paddling around in Henry Street Basin over the last three months, which is namely both vessels coming out of the winter just looked really rough,” he said.
Pictures from May show long scrapes, decaying planks and extensive rusting along their flanks. They also were both surrounded and presumably kept upright by long yellow floats, which still circled the sunken wrecks.
It’s not clear what issues either of the vessels were suffering or what caused them to sink just days apart.
The Victory Chimes started its plunge while a squall ripped through the Big Apple Friday, which is when the ships “began taking on water and ultimately sank alongside Pilot,” the company said in a statement.
“It’s been a tough few days at Crew,” a spokesperson told The Post.
“In response to both incidents, our team called in maritime salvage experts to make a plan to safely raise the vessels, determine the cause of the sinking, and assess any damage to the hulls,” the rep said in a statement.
“We remain hopeful they can be salvaged and restored. Since Crew was founded in 2014, we have been committed to restoring historic vessels for future generations and sharing the spirit of maritime adventure.”
Crew, founded by brothers Alex and Miles Pincus, bought the Victory Chimes for $75,900 at auction in Maine in 2023 — much to the disappointment of locals who had grown attached to the relic of history.
The ship was built in 1900 and designed to carry general cargo in the Chesapeake Bay before serving decades as a cruise liner in The Pine Tree State and ultimately being declared the “Official Windjammer of Maine.”
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
It wasn’t clear what plans the Pincus brothers had for the ship.
The Pilot, like many of the Crew’s other vessels, had been transformed into a floating bar and oyster restaurant and spent years at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 7.
The 102-year-old former racing schooner was replaced by the similarly concepted Fireboat, a retired 1960s FDNY ship, for this season.
Paddlers like Vogel questioned how two incidents could have occurred in such quick succession, saying “it was clear there was not enough work being done in the months leading up to this set of events.”
“Even if there were fluke incidents that led to both sinkings directly, there was a lot of indirect negligence in the lead-up,” he charged, wondering whether Crew’s still-floating fleet of ships were being given proper care.
“I am really sympathetic to people who are doing anything to try to keep historic vessels afloat, much less historic wooden vessels. It is a lot of work. It is not easy. It’s costly, and there are lots of things that can go wrong,” he admitted.
“But when you’re a company that’s promoting itself as doing good work in historic preservation with a growing fleet of vessels, you do have an obligation to live up to the public image that you’re putting out there.”
English (US)