the heroes of the harbor boat parade

The Heroes of the Harbor parade was a spectacular event! Ships from all around the harbor showed up, including the schooners Pioneer and Lettie G. Howard, the FDNY fire boats, etc. Though watching the parade sounded fun, my experience was different. I witnessed it firsthand on the Privateer, participating in the parade.
This was the best way to see and experience the parade. Driving along side each of the other participating vessels was great! One of my favorite historic vessels was the schooner Pioneer, who was being captained by Mike Cohen. He passed our small buoy tender to give a friendly passing wave hello. The whole while we were hard at work at the helm, on bow watch, and working on other various jobs aboard the Privateer. After spending much of the day setting up, parading past Chelsea Piers and watching the ceremony, we may have been tired, but we were glad to have the chance to join in and get a first hand experience of the day's events.