{"id":289788,"date":"2026-07-07T23:40:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289788\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T23:40:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:40:53","slug":"two-historic-schooners-sink-side-by-side-at-a-brooklyn-pier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289788\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Historic Schooners Sink Side-by-Side at a Brooklyn Pier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two historic schooners owned by a hospitality company in Brooklyn went down in uncertain circumstances this week, bringing part of the U.S. East Coast&#8217;s maritime heritage to an apparent end.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On July 1, in the midst of a squall, the schooner Pilot &#8211; most recently used as a bar by \u00a0the local hospitality firm Crew &#8211; went down next to a disused grain terminal in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The 102-year-old racing schooner came to a rest on the bottom, leaving its masts protruding from the water.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No one was injured in the sinking, and the operator remains hopeful that the vessel can be refloated and restored.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At this time, we do not yet know the cause of the incident. Most importantly, no one was aboard and no one was harmed,&#8221; part-owner Alex Pincus told South Brooklyn History. &#8220;Our immediate focus is on working with the appropriate professionals and authorities to understand what happened and determine the safest path to raise Pilot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Pilot had been in layup since earlier this year, having been replaced by the fireboat Alfred E. Smith in restaurant service at that location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 1924-built Pilot was a racing schooner built in the Grand Banks style, and was used as a pilot boat in Boston Harbor through World War II. She later served as a research boat, hosting Jacques Cousteau for a trip to the Galapagos, and was bought for permanently-moored restaurant service in 2015. She was restored and installed at her new berth at Brooklyn&#8217;s Pier 6 in 2017, serving as an oyster bar with views of Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Days later, the Chesapeake Ram schooner Victory Chimes &#8211; the last vessel of her kind &#8211; went down at an adjacent berth in Red Hook. The vessel had been in Crew&#8217;s possession since 2023, and was awaiting restoration. Salvors have been contracted to evaluate both wrecks, according to the owner.<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"med-signup__hero\" src=\"https:\/\/maritime-executive.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=768,format=auto,quality=80,fit=scale-down,onerror=redirect\/images\/quick-sub-header.png\" alt=\"\"   loading=\"lazy\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;this.removeAttribute('srcset');this.removeAttribute('sizes');this.src=\" https:=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>      Stay on Top of the Daily Maritime News<\/p>\n<p>      The maritime news<br \/>\n      <br \/>that matters most<\/p>\n<p class=\"med-signup__copy\">\n      Get the latest maritime news delivered to your inbox daily.\n    <\/p>\n<p>Brad Vogel, a local waterfront and shipping enthusiast, told local media that both of the wooden vessels were showing signs of age and visible deterioration before the back-to-back sinkings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Crew operates comparable restaurant enterprises aboard the sailing vessel Sherman Zwicker (doing business as Grand Banks, in Tribeca) and the fireboat Alfred E. Smith (dba Fireboat, at Pilot&#8217;s former berth in Brooklyn), along with a variety of shoreside bars and eateries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two historic schooners owned by a hospitality company in Brooklyn went down in uncertain circumstances this week, bringing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[18135,98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-289788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-boat","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}