Every summer, the buzz rising from New York’s waterways grows more raucous, as people seeking a break from the heat rent personal watercraft and splash around the city.
With the increased activity comes familiar complaints: crowded rivers, aggressive driving, and disruption and partying near marinas.
But those concerns have been exacerbated this summer, as people seeking liberation from quarantining at home amid the coronavirus pandemic bring more recreational boats and other vessels out onto the water.
The increase in activity has also increased danger, a risk that turned deadly Monday night when two men riding water scooters were killed in a crash off the Bronx, according to the police.
The men, Luis Lugo, 48 and Jorge Mancebo-Reyes, 22, collided sometime after nightfall near the Evers Marina in the Country Club neighbourhood, a Police Department spokesman said Tuesday.
The collision threw the men into Eastchester Bay between City Island and the Bronx mainland. The operator of a private boat pulled both from the water and rushed them to shore, the spokesman said. From there, they were then taken to Jacobi Medical Centre, where they were pronounced dead, the spokesman said.
Officers from the Police Department’s Harbor Unit were still trying on Tuesday to determine what caused the deadly crash. There are several brands of water scooters, and the police did not identify which the men were riding.
For many of New York’s boating enthusiasts and for those who live near where the accident happened, the deaths of the men, whose families could not be reached for comment, were a tragic reminder of the safety concerns raised by the city’s water-scooter boom.
A jet skier near Evers Marina in the Bronx on July 21, 2020. The New York TimesA jet skier near Evers Marina in the Bronx on July 21, 2020. The New York Times“People don’t take their own safety as seriously as they really should,” said Brian Orenstein, who owns a Hoboken, New Jersey, company that provides water-scooter tours of New York City. “They don’t realize that this thousand-pound machine can remove your limb in half a second.”
The waters around the city and across the United States are becoming more perilous.
Recreational boating accidents, including those involving personal watercraft, rose nationwide in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2019, according to the Coast Guard’s National Office of Boating Safety.
Nationwide, fatal boating accidents were up 19% in the first six months of the year, the Coast Guard said. In the Northeast region, which includes New York and the New England states, deadly boating incidents were up 400%.
The increases in recreational boating accidents around the country follow several years of steady declines.
Mariana O’Leary, a Coast Guard spokeswoman, said the service’s personnel had started to notice a jump in recreational boating accidents this year as the weather warmed up and people who had been stuck inside could finally venture out.
“What could be a factor is the fact that people are trying to get out of their houses and their apartments, going a little stir crazy, and perhaps they don’t have the experience they need,” O’Leary said.
Ornstein said his company’s demand for bookings supported that theory. In a typical year, he said, most of his customers were tourists. This year, even with a virtual collapse in region’s tourist trade, he has still been sold out seven days a week, with customers that were “100% local.”
Robert Kaskel, the owner of Rockaway Jet Ski in Queens, said his advance reservations had also soared.
“People have been cooped up,” Kaskel said. “They’re not allowed to go out with their friends all summer, and now it’s hot. And going out on a Jet Ski is coronavirus safe.”
Residents of the Country Club neighbourhood who live near the Evers Marina said that an unruly atmosphere had taken root, especially on recent weekends, with people drinking and gathering on the streets outside.
“It’s been getting rowdy,” Ciera Ferrara, 23, said. “A lot of people come down, litter and park all up and down the block.”
Ferrara said that the crowds were typical every summer, but that those showing up this year appeared to have what she called “pent-up” energy after being isolated at home because of restrictions imposed by the city and state to fight the virus.
Charlie Evers, the marina’s owner, agreed that his docks and the streets near them had been particularly busy this year.
”I’m overbooked,” he said. “It started later than last year, but I’ve never been this packed. People are trying to get out of their neighbourhoods and out of their apartments.”
The marina, which Evers’ father opened in 1937, has about 210 boat slips and does not rent personal watercraft. But Evers does provide a launch ramp people can use to get such vessels onto public waterways.
In recent years, people have often ridden about a quarter of a mile offshore from the marina to party in the waters near City Island, Evers said.
Although state law prevents personal watercraft from operating from sunset to sunrise, Evers said that he often saw people on the water past nightfall, and that the gate to his marina was always open in case boat owners needed access.
Evers said that a marina employee tries to encourage people to leave the water as it gets late, but that he himself had found it difficult to enforce the rules.
And once people are on the water, it becomes even harder for Evers and members of his staff to police their behaviour.
“These guys ride all over the place,” Evers said.
A state assemblyman who represents the area, Michael Benedetto, said that he believed the fatal accident would bring renewed attention to the need for more stringent boating safety in New York.
“Maybe now this accident will cause the police to put more patrols out on the water if there haven’t been,” Benedetto said. “I never had reason to call about that, but it’s something now that has to be looked into.”
Yet even the deadly crash could not keep people from flocking to the water Tuesday. Both Ornstein and Kaskel said they were fully booked for the day, and several other nearby water-scooter tour companies reported being sold out in coming days.
At the Evers Marina, Carlos Rijo, a frequent water-scooter rider, said the accident had made him more cautious. Nonetheless, he said he still expected to continue riding and even hoped to buy his own water scooter soon.
“You know, what happened last night is scary,” Rijo, 29, said. “When you hear about things like that accident happening, it makes you think twice.”
