A Night on the Hudson: 'There's No Fun in This'

The sun sets dramatically over Ossining’s Shattemuc marina as we set off on Launch 5. The last time I was on this restored historic police boat was under better circumstances: to see the swimmers of 8 Bridges up close on a sunny afternoon. This time, we were taking off for a night cruise – something captain Greg Porteus emphatically does not like to do.

“As night sets in you can see it’s game-changing. You’ll see by the end of this there’s no reason to be out here at night,” Porteus says, as darkness descends on his navigation team. Our speed slows down below an already slow 10 knots. The cabin lights are all off so we can see better outside than in. Inside I can’t see my notes or find my camera, which doesn't do well at night anyway, so Porteus shares some of his pictures later.

Though Porteus has told me he really won’t go out at night unless he absolutely has to, he figured the recent fatal crash between a speed boat and a construction barge merited good enough reason to get out and help educate the public about the dangers of night boating and lighting issues still to be addressed.

The construction barges are notably more lit up than they were before the crash on Friday, July 26, but it’s still really hard to see them.

Porteus points out what he can surmise with his binoculars is the fatal construction barge south of the bridge, and only when he shines his own super-powered spotlight on it can the rest of us really see it. “Even if you’re looking for a barge, you don’t see it," he says.

It’s eerie to see this barge at night, which now has all its corners lit and even a flashing strobe sitting on its middle, like the lights they used to put at the scene of a car accident. We pause in silence as Porteus moves the light over its length, illuminating the white patch on the far right corner that is believed to be paint from the speedboat.

He had his cousin Jason Porteus, from the Bronx, moving between steering and watch of the chart and radar, but with no moon in the sky, visibility was good but not great.

There’s also the factor that this particular barge the group of six hit is not where you might expect a barge to be. It’s a good distance south of the bridge – whereas all the bridge work to come will be north of the bridge. Anything outside the channel is fair game for these barges, and they will only increase in number as this project escalates.

Against its backdrop is all the lighting of the bridge itself, rendering depth perception impossible. “What you lose in depth perception at night is startling,” Porteus says.

It doesn’t take much speed to be going too fast for night-driving on the river, with obstacles like that startlingly hard to detect until it’s too late. “At 30 knots, your reaction time is obsolete," Porteus says.

A boat races by going too fast by Porteus' standards, going along the east side toward Dobbs Ferry’s Half Moon bar and restaurant on the riverfront. City lights sparkle downriver behind the George Washington Bridge.

Porteus said the U.S. Coast Guard themselves slammed into a stationary channel marker once, seriously injuring a crew mate at the number eight sitting north of the bridge.

The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a revised Notice to Mariners with updated safety information in light of the bridge rebuild, including an advisory that boaters stay at least 1,000 feet away from all construction barges.

“But what good is a rule if you don’t know it?” asks Porteus. “At night you’ve got to totally rely on these instruments,” admitting that many smaller boats don’t have them. He wondered if the licensing legislation Assemblywoman Sandy Galef and Senator David Carlucci are pushing for might also include a requirement for these machines for night boaters.

On Friday night, there are many bright red lights flashing in a cluster as we traveled south down the center channel. As we got closer, we see a gathering of firetrucks and ambulances, all with their emergency lights flashing at the end of Piermont pier. A group of people are standing around looking at us as we're looking curiously at them. We assume they are there for some sort of one-week anniversary of the crash, providing a visible warning sign to boaters to proceed cautiously in the night. 

Westchester County Police Marine Unit's commander James Luciano tells me later that they are instead there to help a lost Alpine hiker along the shoreline in New Jersey who, once found, might be transported upriver by fire boat.

Porteus is in regular cell phone contact that night with the county's marine unit, who police the waters in the summer months and were the first responders to the scene Friday night. Luciano says he was on vacation that night but his crew described coming upon a "frantic and hectic" scene, trying to search for missing people in and out of the boat. 

When asked if they might have gotten to the crash scene sooner than the 12-plus minutes recorded in the emergency dispatch, he said there was some "misinformation" of their location going around that night. His guys were so close, coming from their station at the Tarrytown marina nearby, but they were sent off course further south. A county helicopter might have sped the search as well but the aviator had been reassigned for the day. "It could have been much different," he said. "You don't know."

Luciano too warned of the difficulties of night-travel, how you have to rely on radar and how "distracting those lights are."

Have they stepped up their policing of the waters since? Luciano says they are always "aggressive" in their efforts to stamp out speeding and drinking on the river, but unlike officers on the roadways they can't just pull someone over without good reason. If they see evidence of a navigation law violation, such as someone going within 50 feet of the shore or a fixed anchorage, then they can screen for drugs and alcohol. "It's difficult to get someone across a three-mile span," he said.

Around 9 p.m. they were down in Yonkers pulling over three jet skis, prohibited to ride between sunset and sunrise. 

Luciano said after the crash they "may spend some later nights out there," but "budgets prevail."

Then Porteus, a retired state trooper himself, calls them to alert them about a pleasure boat we see racing down under the bridge and towards Piermont. County PD responds soon after that they chased them for a while, but found them to be “legit." 

We see the blue police lights flashing in the distance as we again make our way north back to Ossining and a safe harbor.

“There is no fun in this,” Porteus says.