Hudson Raft Project

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.