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Wel­come aboard the newest fer­ry in New York Har­bor: Gov­er­nors 1

Jun 13, 2019 11:09 am

Our new pas­sen­ger fer­ry, the Gov­er­nors 1, is ready to set sail! Gov­er­nors 1 will serve 400 pas­sen­gers per trip between Low­er Man­hat­tan and Gov­er­nors Island, increas­ing our capac­i­ty to trans­port an addi­tion­al 1,000 pas­sen­gers per hour. The new ves­sel will offi­cial­ly go into ser­vice on week­ends begin­ning this Sat­ur­day, June 15 and will make trips between the Bat­tery Mar­itime Build­ing and Sois­sons Land­ing, increas­ing ser­vice to approx­i­mate­ly every 20 min­utes on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days dur­ing the pub­lic sea­son. The fer­ry will also serve both cur­rent and future ten­ants of the Island includ­ing stu­dents at the New York Har­bor School, res­i­dents and staff of the soon to open Low­er Man­hat­tan Cul­tur­al Council’s Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island, along with sea­son­al cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming orga­ni­za­tions and vendors. 

Gov­er­nors 1 was built by Blount Boats, Inc., a fam­i­ly-owned ship­yard led by Mar­cia Blount, based in War­ren, Rhode Island and cel­e­brat­ing their 70th anniver­sary this year. 132 feet long and 40 feet wide, the sin­gle pas­sen­ger deck ves­sel is pow­ered by two 800 horse­pow­er engines and will trav­el at speeds up to 14 knots, short­en­ing dock to dock trav­el time between Low­er Man­hat­tan and Gov­er­nors Island to about five min­utes. It was built using 450,000 pounds of steel, mak­ing it rough­ly the same weight as the Stat­ue of Liberty! 

This month, stu­dents in the ves­sel oper­a­tions class at the Urban Assem­bly New York Har­bor School, locat­ed on Gov­er­nors Island, and their instruc­tors joined our fer­ry crew aboard Gov­er­nors 1 to shad­ow train­ing exer­cis­es. The stu­dents, all in their sopho­more year, have been engag­ing direct­ly with mar­itime oper­a­tors through­out the semes­ter as part of their hands-on cur­ricu­lum. To help illus­trate how a ves­sel like Gov­er­nors 1 gets ready for pub­lic ser­vice, Gov­er­nors Island staff and the crew took the stu­dents through all aspects of dai­ly oper­a­tions, includ­ing start-up pro­ce­dures in the engine room, man-over­board drills in the pas­sen­ger cab­in and even pub­lic ser­vice announce­ments from the pilot house. 

Thank you to the Har­bor School stu­dents, instruc­tors and Prin­ci­pal Jeff Che­tirko for help­ing to prep for Gov­er­nors 1’s maid­en voy­age across New York Har­bor. To learn more about the New York Har­bor School, vis­it newyorkhar​borschool​.org. See the new fer­ry sched­ule here. Wel­come aboard! 

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