BoatBanter.com - The Kiwis are coming

They are coming by sea in sleek racing yachts and they are going to need
what so many people in Manhattan covet — a place to park.
Workers are dredging a boat basin in Manhattan to accommodate yachts while
they pause before starting the next leg of the Volvo Ocean Race.

To make way for them, workers are dredging the North Cove Marina in Battery
Park City as fast as they can. When they started last Saturday, the water in
the marina was less than six feet deep in some places. But the seven boats,
which are taking part in a round-the-world race whose next leg ends at the
Statue of Liberty, need the water to be at least 14 feet deep.

So the agency that runs Battery Park City decided to spend $2.44 million to
give the yachts a proper place to dock when they arrive in early May.

That is how much a New Jersey-based dredging outfit, Donjon Marine Company,
is being paid by the Battery Park City Authority to remove about 25,000
cubic yards of silt from the bottom of the basin by May 1. With a deadline
looming, the authority's directors convened a special meeting three weeks
ago. Although some directors wondered aloud why the authority was paying so
much to prepare for an event that would benefit so few, they unanimously
approved the rushed contract, an authority spokesman confirmed.

The authority, a state corporation that collects rent and other payments
from the owners of residential and office buildings in Battery Park City,
spent $37.2 million last year to manage the entire 92-acre development, at
the southwestern tip of Manhattan.

"We're certainly paying a premium to have it done quickly," said James
Cavanaugh, the president of the authority, which owns the marina. "It's not
cheap to move dirt, especially when it's underwater."

But, he added, "They're going around the world; we don't want them to run
aground in North Cove."

Still, the notion that a state agency would invest a significant amount of
money toward an elite event with a limited following has puzzled some
residents. And the racers will not have a chance to do much spending in New
York because they will be here only two days.

Edward Hersey, a father of two who has lived in Battery Park City for 12
years, said he would rather see the authority spend its money on parks than
yachts. "There needs to be more open, public green spaces," he said.

The yachts are expected in New York Harbor on May 8 or 9, after a short leg
of the race, from Annapolis, Md. The Volvo Ocean Race is a sort of roving
international carnival of sailors from a variety of ports and support teams
of more than 500 people.

In five months, the boats, which are 70 feet long with masts 100 feet tall,
have sailed 25,000 nautical miles in an eastward loop from Spain to South
Africa to Australia to Brazil to Maryland.

The latest leg ended on Tuesday, with ABN Amro One, whose skipper is from
New Zealand, holding the lead. Pirates of the Caribbean, a boat inspired by
the movie which has an American skipper, Paul Cayard, and a crew that
includes Kiwis, Australians and a Dutchman, is in a tight battle for second
place.

After racing 400 nautical miles up the East Coast to New York, the boats
will dock for two days, then turn around and head from Manhattan to
Portsmouth, England.

"The race restart should be really cool and a great symbol for Lower
Manhattan," said Michael Fortenbaugh, commodore of the marina, who led the
campaign to have the race go there. "This is the first time a race of this
magnitude has been attracted to New York City."

Mr. Fortenbaugh's company, North Cove Marina Management, leased the marina
from the Battery Park City Authority a year ago. Dennis Conner, who has won
the America's Cup four times, is one of Mr. Fortenbaugh's partners.

All of the drama on the high seas was of little interest to Thomas D. Witte,
executive vice president of Donjon. His priority was getting the dredging
done on what he called "about the tightest schedule we've ever seen."

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, a crew of five men operates the dredge.
Other Donjon workers operate tugboats that push the loaded scows up the
river, where the silt is unloaded and trucked to landfills, Mr. Witte said.
He said the silt was mixed with cement to form a hard material used to cap
the landfills.

The goal is to increase the depth of the water in the basin to at least 16
feet, he said.

"Unfortunately, the life of a dredger is what the life of a dredger is," Mr.
Witte said. "I've never owned a yacht. I'm all blue-collar vessels."

The late start on the dredging work was causing no worries for the race
organizers, said a race spokesman, Cameron Kelleher. "It's not unusual for
us to be a couple of days away from a stopover and the last few bits of
dredging still to be done," Mr. Kelleher said by phone from Baltimore. "In
Brazil, they were dredging up to two days before we arrived."

Warned that public-works projects are rarely completed on time in New York
City, Mr. Kelleher laughed and said, "You should try Spain."

Kate Hammer contributed reporting for this article.