For a town that calls itself the Peninsula, some of us are amazingly clueless about one of our waterfront’s most important assets. In a remarkably unscientific survey of a few Bayonne friends, none knew that we have a Coast Guard station right here on our shore. You can think of the Coast Guard as one of our friendliest services. Make no mistake, it will be there to defend the United States against enemies near and far, but it will also be there if you capsize your kayak.
The station is a little hard to find. It’s on the same spit of land as the Military Ocean Terminal, but there are not a lot of signs. Across the channel is Global terminal with its giant cranes glinting in the sun; you get a strong sense of a hefty maritime presence—governmental and commercial.
Photographer Victor Rodriguez and I spent a beautiful August morning touring the base with Lieutenant Kenneth Sauerbrunn.
Men and women dressed in various Coast Guard uniforms are busy with their appointed tasks. There’s quite a bit of saluting going on. One reason is that “coasties,” as they are called, are required to salute the U.S. flag when they board and depart the vessels, which are tied up just behind the station.
I wondered about the lieutenant’s use of the word “boat.” My uncle, a career naval officer, cautioned my siblings and me always to use the word “ship.”
It depends on the size of the vessel, according to Sauerbrunn. Those over 65 feet, such as the orange-striped vessels you see out in the harbor are called cutters. But the Coast Guard has lots of smaller “boats,” including the rigid-hull inflatables, with automatic weapons mounted fore and aft that tear up the river at high speeds.
The station’s jurisdiction spans an area as far north as Albany, including the upper and lower bay of New York Harbor, the Hudson River, the East River, Long Island Sound, the Staten Island Kills, and out to sea. There is a station at the Battery in Manhattan, but there are no vessels attached to that facility. Staten Island also has a Coast Guard sector.
The Coast Guard’s missions include ports, waterways, and coastal security; living marine resources; marine safety; defense readiness; and marine environmental protection. It also conducts inspections of waterfront facilities, containers, and commercial vessels throughout the harbor.
Permission to Come Aboard
We’re headed toward the Sturgeon Bay, the ship that Sauerbrunn commands. Sturgeon Bay is in Wisconsin. A sister ship docked in Bayonne is named for Penobscot Bay (Maine). Both are 140 feet. All the “bay” ships are icebreakers. The Hawser and the Line are 65-foot icebreakers. When the river freezes, Sauerbrunn says, barges can’t deliver home heating oil to folks who need it in Albany and other locales. He reminds us, as if we needed reminding, of last winter’s polar vortexes that made the ice-breaking gig more important than ever.
The Coast Guard’s icebreaking operations facilitate the delivery of more than 20 million barrels of petroleum and more than 100 tons of dry goods a year to consumers throughout the Northeast.
We climb the ship’s ladder to the bridge. Its height makes for good visibility. You get a good view of the dock, the station, the other ships, the channel, and the surrounding land and water. When the vessel is underway, 17 people are on board. Three are trained to take the helm; there are also a navigator and a commander.
The icebreaker’s nerve center has an interesting mix of old and new technology. There are electronic navigation maps of the harbor, but there’s also a “sound-power” phone from the ’70s, and most intriguing of all, wooden toy boats deployed to train personnel in docking maneuvers. A major upgrade of the Sturgeon Bay is in the works to preserve the hull and extend its life expectancy.
The Fleet
Other vessels at the Bayonne station include the Sail Fish and the Sitkinak, both 87-foot patrol boats. The Katharine Walker is the large buoy tender that you first see when you approach the docks. She is named for the former lighthouse keeper at Robbin’s Reef in New York Harbor. She is part of the Aids to Navigation mission; the Coast Guard maintains more than 1,800 aids to navigation throughout the New York City region, including buoys, lights, and other aids that guide mariners through the area’s waterways. Some are huge; the Katharine Walker has a big buoy deck to accommodate them. Personnel pull them up, repair them, and put them back. New York Harbor, Sauerbrunn says, is “like a highway without lane markers or signs.”
Ben Phillips, executive petty officer, says the Aids to Navigation division maintains lighthouses and buoys at “service intervals” that cannot be made public. They cover an area that includes Bear Mountain to the north, Rye, West Long Island, Navasink, Shrewsbury, the Rockaways, and out to the Ambrose sea buoy.
Though you might suspect that recreational boaters are more of a burden than a benefit to the Coast Guard, that’s not necessarily so. “Recreational mariners know the harbor and the buoys and will call, radio, or use the website” to alert the Coast Guard when an aid to navigation needs to be replaced or repaired, Phillips says.
One of the most beautiful parts of the Coast Guard complex is the yard to the left of the station where huge old buoys, rusted chains, and all manner of colorful aids to navigation are being stored or awaiting repair. The overall effect is of an outdoor maritime museum, abstract painting, or sculpture garden.
Civilian Safety
Sauerbrunn says that swimmers and kayakers are the toughest to see in the waterways. The Coast Guard ensures that participants in triathlons and marathons are safe and that mariners obey laws. Recreational boats “have to be seaworthy and have life jackets, flares, fire extinguishers, their documents in order, and not be too close to critical infrastructure, such as bridges, the statue, or security zones,” Sauerbrunn says. He stresses that the Coast Guard is a federal entity; it works closely with state and local authorities, including the NYPD Harbor Patrol, the FDNY, the Port Authority, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and managers of facilities such as Liberty Island, Ellis Island, oil facilities, container facilities, or any entity that handles waterfront commerce. The Coast Guard, he says, deals with criminal acts if it encounters them. Drug and migrant interdiction are among its law-enforcement missions.
Sauerbrunn refers to the Coast Guard as a “smaller, intimate service.” Indeed, the entire U.S. Coast Guard has only 35,000 active duty personnel (less than the NYPD); 8,000 reservists; and 32,000 volunteer auxiliarists. The Coast Guard has had a presence since 1790, and Sauerbrunn says there are currently six or seven vessels in Bahrain in a support effort.
Home Port
Still, there’s much to do right here in our own backyard. The port of New York and New Jersey is the third largest port in the U.S., behind the ports of South Louisiana and Houston.
Annually, 86 million tons of cargo, valued at $210 billion, move through the port; 7,000 deep-draft commercial vessels arrive every year; and the Coast Guard monitors and manages 415,000 vessel movements in and around New York Harbor per year.
Search and rescue may be the Coast Guard’s most high-profile mission. It closed the harbor during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, it was on hand for the crash of TWA 800 in Queens, the successful landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, and hurricanes Irene and Sandy, to name just a few. “We’re still recovering from Sandy,” Sauerbrunn says, pointing to the shore, where he says the storm surge flooded the driveway and containers lined up along the wall.
The Coast Guard monitors events such as 4th of July and New Year’s Eve celebrations, Fleet Week, the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, and when dignitaries such as the President visit.
It also enforces federal fisheries regulations on offshore fishing boats.
Though the Coast Guard is pretty busy, it interacts with the community through the American Legion, Sea Cadets, and volunteer outreach. It conducts tours of the Katharine Walker and other vessels, and through PIE (Partners in Education), helps teachers in the classroom.
Whether it’s hurricanes, terrorists, plane crashes, or stalled outboards, the coasties are good folks to have around.—BLP
Photos by Victor M. Rodriguez