home

PortSide offers NYC's only kayak valet service. Paddle to Valentino Park, Red Hook, and we watch your boats so you can visit the neighborhood. Yes, we are trying to get a boathouse installed in Valentino Park, but until then, we're all there is for visiting boaters!

This year, we'll do it twice! June 7, come see the Red Hook Arts Festival 1100-1900. Second Kayak Valet will be in August or September.

Sat June 7 (Rain Date Sun June 8):
We're there 1100-1700. Red Hook maps and tips will be provided with info on where to eat, shop and see areas of local interest. (note IKEA opens 6/18, so don't think you're paddling home with furniture yet.) Info on safe boating (en inglés y español) will also be available. We are working on getting a group to demonstrate the proper use of VHF marine radios.

Practical Details:
Bring a photo ID so we can ID boat owners who have lost their ticket when they pick up boats.
You can hail us that day on VHF channel 68 by calling “PortSide.”
There are Portosans this year!

If you are coming from the north, the Buttermilk has some of the fastest currents in the harbor. It is also a very busy commercial channel with fast ferries, containerships, cruise ships, tugs and barges. Their captains are always concerned when they see recreational boaters as they can’t be sure of the skill level of boaters like you. Please be considerate and prudent and stay out of the channel. Don’t cross in front of large vessels at any distance less than a mile, and make any change of course an obvious move so your intentions are clear. You can hail them on your VHF on Channel 13.

The large commercial vessels have more limited maneuverability than you as they can’t move out of the narrow channel and they need up to a mile to stop. (See Rule #9 below).

If you are coming from the south, be careful crossing the entrance to the Erie Basin. Tugs and barges exit at speed and cannot stop. The Water Taxi dock is active on weekends. Just past this point are the submerged remains of a pier extending out some 200 feet from the wharf where you can see the Lehigh Valley 79 Museum Barge docked. These rocks are submerged most of the day, a small buoy marks the southern end of the remains.

Excerpts from Rule 9, Coast Guard Rules of the Road:
(b) A vessel of less than 20 meters in length or a sailing vessel shall not impede the passage of a vessel which can safely navigate only within a narrow channel or fairway.

(d) A vessel shall not cross a narrow passage or fairway if such crossing impedes the passage of a vessel which can safely navigate only within such channel or fairway. The latter vessel may use the sound signal prescribed in Rule 34(d) if in doubt as to the intention of the crossing vessel.

2007 2nd annual Kayak Valet
It was a hit once again! From about 12:30-1:30pm kayaks arrived from first 5-Boro kayak ramble. Staten Island was their last stop; they were in Red Hook for about an hour for a bunch of speechifying. They introduced some new fashion standards to the Red Hook beach. We sold tickets to the opera on the tanker to wet paddlers, one of whom was n the opera biz. All afternoon, the Red Hook Boaters ran their ever-more-popular free kayaking. Steve's Key Lime Pie bakery was once again a major destination. Some kayakers ate too much pie and assumed the horizontal, and then gave up on the notion of paddling to Hoboken for cannollis.

2006 1st annual Kayak Valet:
9/23/06 The first annual Kayak Valet in Valentino Park was a hit!

press release

download boater invitation click

Read the Brooklyn Papers story