Celebrating Mary A. Whalen's 83rd Birthday

Yesterday was the 83rd birthday of the small coastal oil tanker Mary A. Whalen (photo above). She is owned by PortSide New York, a not for profit organization that has as its purpose to demonstrate "new ways to bring urban waterways to life."

PortSide threw a birthday party for Mary, with educational events, art and activities for kids. 

Emma Garrison (photo above, holding a horseshoe crab), a graduate student in the School of Environmental and Earth Sciences at Queens College of the City University of New York, gave a lecture on marine life in the estuary that includes Mary's dock. Standing to Ms. Garrison's right (left in the photo) in a red shirt is Carolina Salguera, PortSide's founder and executive director.

Before Ms. Garrison began her talk, a large container was lowered over the ship's side down to the water's bottom. It was hauled up after some time, covered in muck and strands of seaweed. Crew members sorted through the mess, and came up with some interesting creatures.

Among them were several tunicates (photo above), "colony animals" (each spot on the surface is a separate animal) that filter their food from the water. Also found were some other tunicates called sea squirts, which were shaped like little bottles with mouths and, when squeezed, would squirt water, to the delight of the children watching.

Another creature found was this little Asian shore crab. Ms. Garrison said these arrived here in the ballast water of ships that came from Asian ports. The haul also included some marine worms, mussels, and an oyster.

After Ms. Garrison's lecture and demonstration, a woman who introduced herself as Cat, a librarian, did some songs accompanying herself on ukulele, and getting the assembled kids to join in. She then read some children's books, again inviting audience participation.

There were several other vessels docked ahead of Mary's berth. One of them was Cornell, a tug formerly owned by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and now preserved and used for excursions and training.

Your correspondent once took a ride on her and witnessed a rescue.

Although ship's cat Chiclet was named the official host of the party, she wisely remained in the cool of the warehouse adjoining the dock on a very warm afternoon.
 


 

Celebrating an oil tanker's 80th birthday.

Oil tankers don't, as a rule, survive for eighty years. The giants that haul crude from oil fields to refineries are reckoned to have a useful life of about twenty years, maybe thirty tops. This isn't about one of those.

The Mary A. Whalen was launched in 1938 at the Red Hook, Brooklyn shipyard of Ira S. Bushey & Sons, as the S.T. Kiddoo. (Mr. Kiddoo was a vice president of Fairbanks Morse; the ship has a Fairbanks Morse engine.) She is all of 172 feet long, and served to haul refined products on coastal routes between New York and New England, as well as carrying bunker fuel to ships in New York Harbor. In 1958, when she was converted from carrying gasoline to carrying fuel oil for home heating or for ship bunkering, her name was changed to Mary A. Whalen. An old maritime superstition has it that changing a ship's name brings bad luck. Mary had bad luck on Christmas day, 1968 when she went aground off the Rockaways. This led to a Supreme Court decision that had considerable effect on maritime law.

Mary was taken out of service in 1994. Instead of going for scrap, she was bought by a maritime services firm that used her as a dock and office. In 2006 she was acquired by PortSide New York a not-for-profit organization headed by my friend Carolina Salguera (photo above). PortSide fixed Mary up, secured a berth for her near her Red Hook birthplace, and in 2011 succeeded in having her listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.

For Mary's eightieth birthday, PortSide invited artists aboard. I found Janice McDonnell (photo above) working on a painting of the giant gantry cranes that load and unload container ships at the Red Hook Container Port, a last vestige of ocean going cargo shipping in New York City, almost all of which has moved to New Jersey, and whose demise has ben predicted for some time but which, so far, has survived.

For an account of an earlier party on the Mary A. Whalen, featuring folk music, see here

They also served, and many died: remembering the merchant mariners.

This weekend we remember the men and women whose lives were lost in defense of our nation and its allies. Among these have been many merchant mariners, whose service was essential in delivering ammunition, fuel, equipment, food, and medical supplies to our troops, and those of our allies, fighting overseas. It is estimated that, in World War II, as many as 9,300 died at sea or later succumbed to wounds inflicted when their ships were attacked by enemy submarines or aircraft, or struck mines.

The photo above is of the American Merchant Mariners' Memorial, by the sculptor Marisol. I took it while walking around Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, and posted it here on November 1, 2006.

American Victory (photo above) is one of the few surviving "emergency" cargo ships from World War II. She has been preserved in my old home city, Tampa, by the American Victory Ship Mariners Memorial Museum. Her dock is at 705 Channelside Drive, near the Florida Aquarium. I visited her there several years ago. Paul Schiffman, a retired Merchant Marine master who tended bar at the Lion's Head, for many years my favorite Greenwich Village saloon, served as a mate on her maiden voyage in 1945, delivering supplies to U.S. forces in the Pacific. At a memorial gathering for Paul, who died in 2011, I learned that Mike Wholey, another Lion's Head regular, had served as a mate on American Victory's last voyage in service, delivering supplies to our troops in Vietnam.

In 1988, pursuant to a court order, merchant mariners who served during World War II were granted veteran status, allowing them to receive discharge papers and medical benefits.

Welcome back, Wavertree!

In my last post I bade farewell to the bark Peking, which had been a feature of the South Street Seaport Museum for over forty years, and which is to be returned to her original home port, Hamburg, Germany, to serve as the centerpiece of a maritime museum there. For the first time in decades lower Manhattan's East River waterfront was devoid of any tall ship. This wasn't to last long, though. On the morning of Saturday, September 24 I saw Wavertree being towed across the harbor (photo above) to her berth at South Street, which she had left some time before to undergo extensive renovation and restoration work at a shipyard on Staten Island.

Seven years before South Street acquired Peking, it bought Wavertree, a wrought iron hulled bark built in England in 1885 that lost her topmasts in a gale while rounding Cape Horn in 1912. She then spent many years as a floating warehouse in Punta Arenas, Chile and later as a sand barge in the harbor of Buenos Aires. When she was brought to South Street her hull was sound, but her topmasts and spars were still missing, and she required extensive work to be put into condition for public touring. The Museum made her restoration a long term project, then acquired Peking which, having served as a floating school after being retired from trading, arrived in almost turnkey condition. For over forty years Peking was the centerpiece of South Street's ship collection, while Wavertree sat forlornly at a neighboring pier, off limits to all but museum workers, and still missing her topmasts and spars.

South Street's galleries, shops, and other facilities on land suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy, which in turn caused complete loss of revenue from admissions and sales for a long period of time. Although the museum was able, with government assistance, to repair the physical damage, the financial damage, partially ameliorated by private contributions, remained. Because of her size, Peking is a very expensive ship to maintain. Consequently, South Street entered into discussions concerning Peking's disposition, hoping to find a new owner that would maintain her as a public museum piece. Fortunately, the German government was able to fund her return to Hamburg, and South Street was able to fund the restoration of Wavertree.

As Wavertree approached South Street, she was greeted by the retired fireboat John J. Harvey, now privately owned. For my earlier encounter with Harvey see here.

Tugs turned Wavertree, preparing to guide her to her berth at South Street's Pier 16, recently vacated by Peking. At the left in the photo is the Gloucester fishing schooner Lettie G. Howard, part of South Street's ship collection but also used as a sail training vessel by the New York Harbor School.

Here's Wavertree, two days later, secure at her berth. Her masts aren't as tall as those of Peking, but she's more representative of the ships that docked along South Street in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I'm glad to have her there.

Auf wiedersehen, Peking!

As I noted here last year, the barque Peking, launched in Hamburg, Germany in 1911, will return to her birthplace and original home port, where she will be the centerpiece of a new maritime museum. She was taken in tow by two tugs Wednesday morning and left her berth at Pier 16 of the South Street Seaport Museum for an initial short voyage to the Caddell Dry Dock on Staten Island. She'll spend the winter there, then in spring will be carried across the Atlantic to Hamburg on a semi-submersible heavy lift ship.

Peking's place at Pier 16, and as centerpiece of South Street's historic ship collection, will be taken by Wavertree, which returns to South Street on September 24 following extensive restoration and maintenance work.

I took the photo above as Peking glided past the Brooklyn Bridge Park Marina on Wednesday morning.

S.S. United States won't sail again. Can she be saved?

I had a feeling it was too good to be true. As I noted in my earlier post, the cost of making the S.S. United States suitable for use as a cruise ship, including hazardous substance remediation and removing her steam turbine engines and replacing them with diesels, would prove prohibitively expensive to her prospective owners, Crystal Cruises. Now my misgivings have been confirmed.

In my previous post I opined that the cruiser conversion was likely the Big U's last chance to avoid the fatal trip behind towboats to the beach in India where she'd be cut to bits like an enormous stranded whale. The story linked above notes that Crystal will donate $350,000 to the SS United States Conservancy as a good will gesture to help with the ship's preservation. Proposals to bring her to New York, possibly as a hotel, a museum, or just a static display, are still being considered. The cost of doing that wouldn't be nearly as great as for making her a cruise ship, but they would still be substantial. I'm hoping one or more of our local grandees will see the value of bringing back this part of our city's history, and that the fate Oliver Wendell Holmes feared for "Old Ironsides"--"The harpies of the shore shall pluck/ The eagle of the sea"--will not befall S.S. United States.

The Mariners, handsomest of cargo ships.

In July of 1954, my father, mother, and I boarded the USNS Geiger at Southampton for our return voyage to the U.S. following Dad's three year tour of duty in England. Geiger was one of three--her sisters were Barrett and Upshur--passenger and cargo liners that had been under construction during the early 1950s for American President Lines but, because of the Korean War, had been taken for military service (they were heavily subsidized by the government, which allowed this option). As we boarded Geiger I saw a sleek new cargo ship docked astern of us, also in Military Sea Transport Service livery, with the name Cracker State Mariner. We departed Southampton that afternoon, with Cracker State Mariner still at dock. After a smooth summer crossing, we arrived several days later at the MSTS terminal on Staten Island. As we pulled into our dock, I could see, already docked at the next pier, Cracker State Mariner, which had outpaced Geiger, a new ship herself, across the Atlantic.

The photo above shows Cracker State Mariner after she left government service in 1956 and became part of the American President Lines fleet, renamed President Coolidge, She remained with APL until 1974, when she became Export Defender of American Export Lines. Four years later she reverted to government ownership and to her original name. As breakbulk freighters were quickly going out of style at that time, I suspect she went out of service and was laid up in the government's reserve fleet. In 1992, having survived a respectable 38 years, she went for scrap in India.

Sometime in the mid 1970s I was taking a mid-day stroll around Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, and saw the Thomas Jefferson, of the Waterman Steamship Corporation, heading outward through the channel between Manhattan and Governors Island. I didn't know it, but this was to be my last view of a Mariner class ship. She was originally Golden Mariner, completed, like Cracker State Mariner, in 1954, but on the opposite coast. Golden Mariner named for California, the Golden State, was built at Bethlehem's San Francisco yard; Cracker State Mariner at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. In 1955 Golden Mariner became part of the Pacific Far East Line fleet, and in 1961 she was renamed California Bear. She was acquired by Waterman and became Thomas Jefferson in 1973, not long before I saw her. She was broken up at Kaohsiung, Republic of China, in 1980.

No doubt I'll get some disagreement with my calling the Mariners the handsomest of cargo ships. There are many rivals, American and foreign. My nominee for runner up in that category is the Victories, the war emergency class that preceded the Mariners and succeeded the "ugly duckling" but much loved Liberties. I've written before about American Victory, one of three surviving members of that class, that is now a floating, and sometimes mobile, museum in my old home city, Tampa.

Photo of President Coolidge ex Cracker State Mariner: Photographer / Collection: Bar, Marius / Boman, J. Robert – Source: Sjöhistoriska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden – (Swedish Maritime Museum), via 7seasvessels.com, from which I got historical information about the ship, as well as about Thomas Jefferson ex Golden Mariner.

S.S. United States revived as a cruise ship?

The news that S.S. United States, former flagship of the U.S. Merchant Marine fleet and last holder of the Blue Riband, may be purchased and converted for use as a cruise ship was encouraging to me, as it removes the immediate threat of the great ship's being sold for scrap,

The prospective buyer, Crystal Cruises, has published a rendition (see above) of the ship as modified for cruising duty, The visible changes are minimal: a small extension of the superstructure aftward, and replacement of the long rows of old fashioned open lifeboats with short rows of modern high capacity enclosed inflatable life rafts. I'm delighted to see that Crystal intends to keep the original red, white, and blue funnel paint scheme. Greater change is in store below decks, where steam turbine engines would be replaced by diesels.

The thought of seeing the "Big U" once again heading into or out of New York Harbor -- Crystal's CEO says they intend to make New York her home port -- some day is thrilling. Still, there are a couple of troubling possibilities. The ship is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), carcinogenic substances that will have to be removed before the ship can be put into service. Crystal's CEO has said the cost of remediation, the extent of which will be determined after inspection by the EPA, could be a "dealbreaker". My guess is there's a good likelihood that Crystal will back out because of this. If so, the trip to the breakers seems inevitable, as any restoration of the ship as a public attraction would also require PCB remediation. Fortunately, an earlier owner who had contemplated using her as a hotel and casino had her cleaned of asbestos.

Crystal is under the same ownership as the Norwegian Cruise Line. In fact, NCL bought the United States in 2003 from the last of a series of owners who had failed plans to use her for cruising or as a stationary hotel, casino, or the like. NCL eventually abandoned the plan to make her a cruiser, and, in 2011, sold her to the SS United States Conservancy, which has managed to raise funds sufficient to pay dockage fees and keep the ship stabilized since then. It's interesting to note that NCL previously bought another great transatlantic liner, S.S. France, and, with extensive modifications, converted her for cruising as S.S. Norway. As such, she served successfully from 1980 until 1984, when she was withdrawn from service to have her steam engines removed and replaced with diesels, along with further superstructure modifications, after which she returned to cruising until 2003, when a boiler explosion at the Port of Miami killed several crew members. She was then towed to Europe, laid up, and then sold for scrap in 2006. The whole story, ending with photos of her being dismantled off the beach at Alang, India, is here.

Should the Big U become a cruiser, she would likely face a similar fate after twenty or so years of service, or possibly less. Interest in her preservation is likely to have faded considerably by then; there will be few left alive who can recall having sailed on her during her service as a liner, or have fond memories of the heyday of transatlantic sea travel. Her value as scrap is likely to exceed by a good margin whatever might be offered to preserve her.

My hope was that she could be brought to New York, docked somewhere along what was once called "Ocean Liner Row" on Manhattan's West Side, and used as a floating hotel, much like her erstwhile companion Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. Ideally she would include a museum devoted to her history and that of transatlantic sea travel. Unfortunately, no one saw this as an economic proposition. Still, if some day I can look out across the harbor and see her, with her magnificent funnels, making her stately way to or from the sea, I will say a heartfelt "Thank you, Crystal."

The tall ship Peking will be leaving South Street Seaport to return to Hamburg, Germany. This is good.

The bark Peking, her tall, buff painted masts reaching the height of at least some lesser buildings on the lower Manhattan skyline, and a dominant feature seen from across the East River, from Brooklyn Bridge Park, where this photo was taken, has been a presence since a few years after I moved to New York.. Launched in 1911 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Peking was one of the largest steel hulled sailing ships ever built, and one of the last large cargo sailing ships.

In 1933 Peking was taken out of service and sold to an English charity for use as a school for boys. She was renamed Arethusa, and anchored in the River Medway, where she remained until 1975. That year she was purchased by the South Street Seaport Museum, brought to New York, and put on display at Pier 16 on the east side of lower Manhattan.

The museum also owns another tall ship, Wavertree, whose white masts and bowsprit can be seen in the photo in front of Peking. Over the years, the cost of keeping two tall ships in good condition has proved a drain on the Museum's finances. Wavertree is now in drydock undergoing extensive maintenance and renovation, which I hope will include installation of her topmasts and spars.

News has now come that, thanks to funding by the German government, Peking will return to her first home, Hamburg, to serve as a floating museum there. This seems most appropriate to me, as Peking had no historical connection to New York, her trade routes having been mostly between Australia or South America and Germany.  Wavertree, by contrast, was in tramp service, and likely visited New York a number of times.

I'll miss those tall buff masts and that sleek hull, but I'm glad that Peking is going home, and that the Museum will be spared the cost of maintaining her and can concentrate on Wavertree and the other vessels in their collection.

Party on a tanker? Yes, if it's PortSide NY's Mary A. Whalen.

A week ago PortSide New York, headed by my friend Carolina Salguera, played host to a weekend long festival aboard their historic coastal tanker Mary A. Whalen. I went on Saturday afternoon, when a folk music sing-along was scheduled.

Leading the singing were A. Heather Wood and Jerry Korobow of the Folk Music Society of New York.

Two macaws were among the visitors aboard.

Off in the harbor a fireboat was making a display of spray.

Looking aft, I saw cranes of the Red Hook Container Port and the skyline of lower Manhattan.

We sang some folk music chestnuts like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and labor songs like "Solidarity Forever" and "Union Maid." At my suggestion we did a couple of sea shanteys, "New York Girls," as performed below by Steeleye Span, with assistance from Peter Sellars on ukulele and verbal commentary,
 

and "Haul Away Joe," which I'd learned first from the Kingston Trio, then from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.
 

Heather and Jerry led us in a version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with which I was not familiar:



As I left the party, I took this photo of Mary A. Whalen's wheelhouse and funnel against a sunset sky:

Maritime views from an evening walk.

Yesterday evening I took a walk down to Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 5. As I walked out onto the pier, the sun had already set, but its rays were still reflected from clouds to the west.

As I reached the end of the pier and looked south, I saw the tug Miriam Moran "on the hip" of a barge loaded with cargo containers, taking them from the Red Hook container port; their probable destination being a railhead in New Jersey. You can find another photo of Miriam, and a link to an explanation of "on the hip," in this post.

The small container ship Nefeli was docked further down at Red Hook. Most ships using this facility bring containers loaded with bananas from Central and South America.

Looking to the west, I saw my old friend the self-unloading bulk carrier Alice Oldendorff coming through the channel between Governors Island and lower Manhattan, heading for her dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Like her sister Sophie Oldendorff, seen in this post, she will deliver a load of Canadian crushed stone.

The attractive motor launch Kingston was moored at the north side of the pier, waiting for the next day's work.

A tour of the historic Brooklyn waterfront, with the Working Harbor Committee.

On June 11 my wife and I went on another of the Working Harbor Committee's "Hidden Harbor" tours. A year ago we took one that left from the west, or Hudson River side of Manhattan and went past lower Manhattan, through the Buttermilk Channel between Brooklyn and Governors Island, then across New York Bay to the Kill Van Kull, which lies between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey. Passing under the Bayonne Bridge, we went into Newark Bay, where we saw the huge complex of piers and cranes and the container ships docked there. See a photologue here.

Last month's tour went from Pier 17, adjacent to the South Street Seaport on the Manhattan side of the East River just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, and focused on the Brooklyn waterfront. After leaving the dock we headed north, passing under the Brooklyn Bridge (John Roebling, 1883; photo above).

Shortly after, we went under the Manhattan Bridge (Leon Moisseiff, 1912).  Behind the bridge is DUMBO ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), once an industrial area but now filled with art galleries and studios, high end retail, tech company offices, and mostly very expensive residences.Near the shoreline is part of Brooklyn Bridge Park; at left is an apartment building under construction, revenue from which will help to fund the park's maintenance.

The self-unloading bulk carrier Sophie Oldendorff was discharging her cargo of crushed stone from Canada at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Yard opened in 1806, and from then until the mid 1960s built and serviced many U.S. Navy ships, including the battleships Maine, whose sinking in Havana harbor in 1898 helped to lead to the Spanish-American War, and Missouri, on whose deck Japan signed its surrender, bringing World War Two to a close. The Yard is now an industrial park controlled by a Development Corporation. In addition to docks and a ship repair facility, it is home to many industrial operations and to Steiner Studios, one of the largest production studios outside the Los Angeles area.

Proceeding upriver (technically, the East River isn't a river, but a tidal strait connecting Long Island Sound and Upper New York Bay) we passed under the northernmost of the three bridges connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan: the Williamsburg Bridge (Leffert L. Buck/Henry Hornbostel, 1903). When completed, it was considered by many to be an eyesore; later aesthetic judgments have been kinder. Beyond the bridge in the photo above is the former Domino Sugar Refinery, now, like so many former industrial buildings along the Brooklyn waterfront, being converted for residential use.

We went to the entrance of Newtown Creek, which serves as the boundary between Brooklyn and Queens.

Returning to the Navy Yard, we passed a base for FDNY fireboats.

We also saw Kennedy, training ship for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, in drydock for repairs.

Continuing southward, we went under the Brooklyn Bridge again, then passed Jane's Carousel, in its pavilion designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. The colorful structure in the foreground is Tom Fruin's "Kolonihavehus." These are located in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The tall building in the background is One Main Street, formerly part of a cardboard box manufacturing complex and now residential.

This is Fulton Ferry Landing, the Brooklyn terminus of Robert Fulton's steam powered ferry from Manhattan. The steam ferry began service in 1814, but oar and sail powered ferries had plied the same route since the mid 1600s. The steam ferry led to the development of Brooklyn Heights as America's first suburb. Although the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883, ferries continued to operate until 1908. Their death knell was sounded by the subways. Today, ferry service is back and ferries to and from Manhattan, Governors Island, Queens, and other Brooklyn locations dock at nearby Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The white building with the tower is a former fireboat house, now occupied by the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. The red brick building at the right, with fire escapes, has at different times been a railroad headquarters and a toilet bowl factory, and is now apartments. The white vessel with the canopy tied to the pier at right is Bargemusic, a popular venue for chamber music concerts. The taller red building at center is the Eagle Warehouse, completed in 1893 and designed by Frank Freeman, a prominent Brooklyn architect who worked in the Romanesque tradition of Henry Hobson Richardson. The building was named for the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, edited for a time by Walt Whitman, the headquarters of which had earlier been on the site. Today, like many other commercial and industrial buildings on or near the Brooklyn waterfront, it has been converted to residential use. The tall beige buildings in the background were part of the Squibb pharmaceutical manufacturing complex, are now owned by the Watchtower Tract and Bible Society, better known as Jehovah's Witnesses, and used as part of their administrative and printing operations, As the Witnesses move their operations upstate, they are slated to be sold, no doubt for conversion to residential use.

We passed Brooklyn Bridge Park's landscaped Pier 1 (these were former commercial shipping piers, now converted to parkland) and one of Danish artist Jeppe Hein's "Modified Social Benches," part of his "Please Touch the Art" exhibition.

The Japan Coast Guard training ship Kojima (PL 21) was docked at Pier 7, just south of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Laura, a small container carrying freighter, was at the Red Hook Container Port. The demise of this small port has been predicted for some years, as it lacks a railhead and vast acres of storage space, but most importantly, it sits on waterfront land desirable for residential development. Plans for expansion of container port operations in Brooklyn may save it.

Here we're entering the Erie Basin, named for the fact that it was where schooners laden with Midwestern grain discharged their cargo into grain elevators which then loaded them onto oceangoing ships that carried it overseas. The schooners got the grain in Albany, transshipped from Erie Canal barges (hence "Erie Basin") and carried it down the Hudson River. The barges had gotten it in Buffalo from ships that carried it eastwards through the Great Lakes.

The Erie Basin area has many nineteenth century warehouse buildings. The one on the left houses a supermarket on the ground floor; the one on the right has been used for art shows, and the trolley car in the foreground is of the PCC type previously used in Brooklyn.

This retired Lehigh Valley Railroad barge is now a waterfront museum.

After passing Erie Basin, we came close to the famous (or should it be infamous?) Gowanus Canal; from there I got this long-lens shot of the elaborate Gothic entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery.

Continuing southward, we saw the docks where barges from New Jersey load and unload freight cars destined to or from Long Island or New England. 

Looking south, we could see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (1964), connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island. From here, we returned to our dock in Manhattan.