Add The New York Post on Google Two historic vessels — including one featured on Maine’s state quarter — have been sitting at the bottom of the polluted Gowanus since mysteriously sinking in July and are now likely headed for the garbage heap.
The restaurateurs who own the ships are not willing to shell out what could easily turn into millions of dollars to rescue Maine’s submerged Victory Chimes and the PILOT — a former research vessel once used by famed TV oceanographer Jacque Cousteau — from the murky Brooklyn waters and resurrect them to their former glory, sources told The Post.
“Total demolition. Garbage,” an insider said of the expected plans for the schooners, which have a collective 232 years of history between them.
Alex and Miles Pincus — brothers and the owners of the company Crew that turns boats into trendy floating restaurant bars — moved their vessels into the Gowanus Canal inlet months earlier for repairs.
The 1924 PILOT — the longest-serving pilot, or guide, ship in US history and a former Cousteau research hub on its way to becoming a possible National Historic Landmark — had already made a name for itself as a popular floating oyster bar under the brothers’ care.
The 1900 Victory Chimes — the last surviving Chesapeake Ram schooner and already a US National Historic Landmark whose image graced the Pine State’s 2003 quarter — was being mapped out for a similar future.
But the two vessels sank within days of one another in Red Hook’s Henry Street Basin over the July 4 weekend.
Since there is no shore power in the obscure basin, the situation has resulted in all but a death sentence for the vessels, since such wooden boats easily fill with water and require frequent pumping and maintenance, experts said.
Insurance will not pay for the damaged ships unless the brothers have a concrete plan for them after they are refloated.
“There are three different scenarios,” said Zdenek Ulman, the owner of Marine Diving Service who responded to the scene and secured the schooners when they sank, referring to the boats’ future.
“It could be refloating the vessels and bringing them to the yard to have them fixed or they could be re-floated and be scheduled for total disposal. Or they can be disassembled right at the seafloor and the seafloor would be cleared out with the demolition in place.”
The brothers have not yet chosen a pathway — but an insider said the pair isn’t willing to spend the cash, especially when just refloating the boats could cost a minimum of $500,000.
That’s 558% higher than the relatively bargain $75,900 Crew bought the Victory Chimes for in 2023.
“The Victory Chimes is in worse condition than the other, and it may not be worth it to repair,” the source said. “Everything gets very pricey. The latest development is they might be leaning toward disposing both of these vessels.”
The brothers are reportedly so desperate to offload the Victory Chimes that they even begged its previous owner to take it back.
“The Pincus brothers called up the old captain and said, ‘I’ll pay to bring it back up there and give it to you,’ because they don’t want to f–king deal with it,” said Charlie Weidman of Charlie’s Marine Service, who once shared a dock with the Victory Chimes, the official Windjammer of Maine, during its storied time in the state.
“They wanted the oyster bar because they knew, ‘Hey, this is going to make money.’ … They got the Victory Chimes, years went by, and they didn’t have a location to put it.”
The potential undignifed end for the ships is especially enraging to Mainers who already had suspicions about the brothers’ plans to usurp the Victory Chimes into their popular floating restaurant chain.
“Nobody liked that it was going to be turned into a bar, but it was a better fate than having it be chainsawed into pieces,” said Quinton Donleavy, a photographer who helped create the original website for the Victory Chimes during its final years in the Pine State.
“There are worse things — and then the worst thing happens.
“Especially the way that it happened: the glorious boat of Maine that was on the 2003 state quarter. To go from that to it just sank in a bunch of back harbor filth along with some other boat that was hopeless, it’s just sad.”
Crew did not respond to requests for comment by The Post, only saying an investigation into the sinkings is ongoing.
