Seng, Dave wrote: > > the large group of > > people waiting their turn behind the photographer. These are free for > > use in the embayment by the general public. Last year we put about > > 8,000 or so people on the water. That isn't a guess, it's a count of > > the annual waivers we ask be signed. > > I'm curious Ralph, how long do people get to paddle? Are they limited as > to the distance they can paddle away from the Boathouse area? The program has two aspects. The first is the embayment use. People are allowed to paddle for about a half hour in the embayment, which is a protected arear out of the channel that is about 3 or 4 football fields in size. It does get heavy wakes coming in. Spills? Probably a boat a weekend if that. They are not allowed to paddle into the river proper. The second aspect are the free trips to the Statue of Liberty or up to the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum, about the same distance upriver as the Statue is downriver. These are on weekend mornings on a lottery basis. People need to have paddled a few times in the embayment prior to attempting this or have had other paddling experience. The group is limited to about 12-14 with generally 3 or so escort experienced kayakers. > Do you have > to keep "lifeguards" on the water? We have a rescue boat ready on the kayak dock to go out to pick up people. Often we have patrolling kayakers out there, mainly to keep people from straying into the river channel and to do rescues. Someone is up on a lifeguard chair with binoculars and a bullhorn. We do get caught short-handeed at times but that is the breaks of volunteerism. To answer you question below, this is all volunteer. No one draws a salary or any payment. It is infectious; we find that people come to try out the public program, like the vibes and hang around to help people in and out of the boats (Sandy's son started doing that when she was out testing my K-Light). Some then come back and become a regular volunteer. The paddlers while mainly yuppie types have a decent amount of inner city minority people coming out that pleases me no end. I have been on duty when the volunteers below are all Puerto Rican, some Argentine visitors are being placed into boats, and I am up above chatting away in Spanish with all of them. Also many African-Americans, occasionally with boomboxes, some who have stayed to volunteer. And gays and old couples and kids and people in S&M leather and nipple rings. And also gorgeous women and hunky men; I have been told that an article in Elle mentions the bronzed muscular men. It is all a nutty scene, an earthling version of the bar in Star Wars. > Is the Boathouse run on private funding > (ie donations)? It sounds like a great idea and is obviously very > successful but I wonder if it doesn't also require full time staff to keep > it up and running. No staff as stated above. It is funded by the membership and by the storage fees for keeping boats stored in the boathouse. Spaces are no longer available. The organizers of the boathouse are moving toward any new boat stored there is considered a public boat, or having people who keep boats there volunteer contractually to do x number of hours of work there. As for raising money to pay for boats, maintenance etc, beside the fees, the Downtown Boathouse last year put out a holy box (I betray my R.C. background...a donation box) for people to put donations in in they wish. No pressure. It is now starting to get in some needed cash for the place. You have got to see this place. Really. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Mar 01 2000 - 12:47:05 PST
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