Hudson Raft Project

An outlook on setting sail to Manhattan

Hudson Raft Project header image 3

2006: The USS Crab Legs

We came up with the idea to build a raft during my last year of college. My friend Justin and I were helping our future navigator, Rob, move into an apartment. That day, we decided to take a walk along the Walkill River. We found a clearing in the woods where we could see the river through a bunch of skinny trees and vines. We watched the waves move downstream toward the Hudson.

“Dude,” said Justin observing the passing waters. “It would be so awesome to take a boat all the way down to the city.”

            “Yeah,” I said, “but where are we going to get a boat?” This was an old conversation we had had every time we’d go fishing or swimming. A couple of poor guys like us couldn’t get our hands on a boat. Still, it was nice to picture ourselves out on the open waters drinking a beer, enjoying the sunlight and the breeze, throwing a hook in the water and talking to a buddy next to you waiting for a bite.

           “You know,” said Rob “you could canoe all the way to the city if you wanted.”

            Everybody let out a sigh. That wasn’t the same as having a boat, something you could sit on and relax with your friends. It seemed like a lot of work, too, canoeing. 

            “How hard do you think it would be to like, build a raft or something and float down?” I asked.

            Justin laughed. Rob loves a spectacle.

            “I think we could do it,” he said.

            Justin laughed a little more.

            “Why don’t we do it?” I asked, sort of egging on Rob but also feeling like we could do it easily if we really wanted to. Now Rob was a little more cautious.

            “Well, what are we going to do, what are we going to build it out of?”

            Justin forced a chuckle the way a person might try to laugh at a joke they’ve already heard.

            “Well, it would be easy. All you’d need is some wood and a bunch of like, you know, floaty stuff. And you could just float down the river when the tide was going out, and tie up when the tide came back in. Then when it goes out again, just untie and keep going. It would be easy,” I said.

            “The tide changes twice a day,” said Rob, who was a boy scout. “It comes up for six hours and goes out for six hours. Comes up and goes out. And the time it changes changes everyday.”

            Now Justin was silent.

            “So what? You’d have to tie off twice a day. Easy.” I said. 

            “Well I suppose we could do it,” Paul said, “but why would we want to?”

            “To go to New York City.”

            “I’m down,” Justin chimed in.

            “Umm,” said Rob, “Have you heard of a train or a car or any of the other means of transportation that exist that aren’t ridiculous?”

            “Yes yes, but I want to go to New York on a raft,” I said.

            “Count me in,” said Justin.

            Rob smiled. “Well, what are we going to build it out of?”

            “You know, stuff that floats.”

            “So we’re just going to float down the river on a bunch of—pretty much other people’s garbage? And what are we going to say when people ask us what we’re doing?”

            The idea came to me immediately.

            “We’ll tell everyone we’re protesting America’s reliance on fossil fuels,” I said, and everyone laughed.

            “Well, okay,” said Rob with a big grin on his face. “But we’re going to need a big flag.” 

* * *

We didn’t do too much planning for our first raft. About two weeks before our launch we started gathering the supplies we guessed we’d need to build the thing: some decaying pallets, some rotten fence posts, nails. We asked the Coeymans Yacht Club if they had any barrels they could donate to us, and they showed us to a pile of barrels in the middle of the woods half covered in leaves. When we picked them up a black organic ooze got all over us. We brought everything to my friend’s parent’s driveway to put it together. Here are some pictures of the platform under construction.

“What do you know about building a raft?” My father asked when I told him about the project.
“What did the first person who ever invented a raft know about building a raft?” was my crafty response. I figured we’d solve the problems as they came up. 
One of the big problems became moving the platform to the river after we’d built it, because it was a little more than 12 ft by 12 ft and we didn’t have a trailer. We tried to lift the thing to put it on the back of a truck but it bent like melted cheese. Finally a friend lent us a trailer and we snuck it in the middle of the night downhill to the river.
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The next day Justin and I put on the barrels, and Rob showed up and added lots of flags. He also showed up with a 30 pack of water.
“What are you doing with that?” Justin said. “I thought this was a beer only trip.”
“Dude we’re going to want water on this trip or we’ll get dehydrated.”
“There’s water in the beer!” I compromised. 
Rob put up four posts and strung a tarp across for protection from the weather. We loaded up our supplies and I donned an outfit I felt was appropriate for the captain of a raft. Here we are getting ready for launch.
I asked my mother to break a bottle of champagne across the bow but because the wood was soft the bottle wouldn’t break. That’s an unlucky sign for a seagoing vessel. On the other hand we had a bottle of champagne to drink. An hour before high tide (when we would launch) a torrential storm opened up overhead and everything got soaking wet. Nonetheless we left more or less on time to the cheers of our family and friends. It wasn’t comfortable.
We made about nine miles in the first tide and slept near Rattlesnake Island in Coxsackie. After the storm passed that night the skies cleared to show a moonless black expanse dotted with millions of celestial sugar crystals. It was really peaceful out there in the middle of the night, in the process of doing exactly what we said we were going to do, despite the claims of naysayers. 
The next day we got up at seven a.m. and got in the water again, but we seemed to be sitting deeper in the water.
I took a nap around noon and woke up an hour later with my feet touching the water. The barrels we’d been given apparently were not sound. We starting sinking just as a barge and a tanker were passing on either side of us. They passed by like two skyscrapers only dozens of feet away and we were knocked down when their wakes collided underneath us. By that point we couldn’t steer at all because we were half submerged, and our only choice was to paddle for a pile of rocks with a beacon on top of it in the middle of the water near Hudson. 
There we stayed, marooned, our raft sunk and in pieces, in the middle of the river with the Rip Van Wrinkle Bridge a mile downstream. For three hours we sat there trying to figure out what to do, until the tide started coming back in and washing away our stuff. Finally we called the police, who came out and laughed at our sorry state. They brought us to Hudson where we had to call Rob’s father to pick us up, an hour later, in the drizzle. 
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I got home in a bad mood. I really expected to make it to New York. It seemed like a mean trick of existence that we didn’t. I sat around all night brooding. As far as I was concerned, we absolutely had to try again.

2 Comments

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Mom Trombley // Jun 1, 2009 at 10:50 am

    Dallas,

    Since I know you try again I can only say thank goodness your not a quitter. Remember, everyone has dreams, however, only a rare few have the courage to act on them. I am proud to say you are amongst the rare who choose to go for it. I am so proud of you.

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