Report Review
Pier 25 has all the amenities of the average New York city parking garage which is to say none except for a place to park your vehicle. It is not as advertised and to call it a marina is an insult to marinas. Approaching from the south I could not raise anyone on VHF because the young inexperienced “dockmaster“ had dropped his radio into the water. We were finally able to talk to someone by pulling up to the dock where the sincere but inexperienced young man communicated with us by direct shouting back-and-forth. Once he understood that we were there for the night, that we had reserved and paid through Dockwa, he hopped in the “launch “ and had us follow him to our mooring. Pier 25 advertises that each mooring customer is assigned a private “launch” with electric motor to get to and from the dock. Not true. There are no private launches. There is one five passenger zodiac dinghy with an electric motor, operated by the “dockmaster.” It was very close to the water and very difficult and even risky to transfer from the deck of my trawler down to the zodiac. Even though multiple moorings were available within the recesses of the “Marina“ he put us on the mooring that was the farthest out and most exposed to traffic and swell and wake from the Hudson River. I asked him to let us use one of the moorings that were deeper into the “Marina“ but he said his boss wouldn’t let him because we were “too big“ even though there were several boats of equal or greater length moored further inside. We picked up our mooring line and began the typical cleanup and arranging routine after a five hour leg on our trip. Before we could really get started, he said that he needed to take us in right away or he wouldn’t be able to for some time as he had pupils from the sailing school to ferry from their sailboat to the dock. He also said that although there were four of us and his dinghy was certified for five he could only take three of us at a time because he “didn’t trust the electric motor to push five people.“ Under pressure, I got in first under pressure so he could return to the boat and bring the other three of us ashore. When we got ashore and asked where the restrooms were, he said ‘Oh you have to use the public restrooms” and pointed in the general direction of the riverside promenade which is used by hundreds and hundreds of runners walkers and scooters. It was a New York City public restroom in all its glory.
We had no easy way to get back to the boat nor any desire to stay aboard because of the rocking and rolling, so we set out to find a place to eat lunch and walk around the city. About four hours later, we came back and were taken to our boat which was rocking even more than it has been before. I Hidden requested that we be moved to a mooring that was farther in and the “dockmaster/zodiac pilot“ said he would find out if we could and left. After about 15 minutes I began calling him on his VHF, which had dried out by then, and got no answer. I opened up my Dockwa app and saw that Liberty Landing Marina was only 20 minutes away across the Hudson. I made a call to see if there were slips, which there were and then made a reservation on the Dockwa app and 20 minutes later we were tying up to a blessedly calm and peaceful slip in the middle of a beautiful marina. I suppose the $150 I paid for the mooring at Pier 25 wasn’t completely wasted because we were able to park the boat for a few hours and enjoy a sparkling early October day in lower Manhattan.
I don’t know if Dockwa checks the veracity of the advertisements and descriptions of the marinas who advertise here, but they should Because Pier 25 is nothing like it is described in Dockwa or on its webpage, and that needs to change.