Meeting Jim Chambers

When our crew arrived at Liberty Landing Marina around 1pm on Thursday, I had a mission in mind. Find the chase boat that would follow The Greatest Loop on our photo shoot around Manhattan the next morning. Plans had already been made with our photographer arriving from Annapolis, the weather forecast was looking terrific… but I was missing a serious piece of the puzzle.

Luck would have it that I spoke with the right people at the fuel dock, and got introduced within minutes to a gentleman named Jim Chambers who keeps his boat at the marina.

A few moments later, Jim agreed to take his trawler Osprey out at sunrise the very next day.

Fast-forward to 5:30am, Jim greeted The Greatest Loop crew at his dock with a steaming coffee pot (Amen!), then our photographer and a journalist joined him aboard the Osprey.

It wasn’t until we finished our wild ride around the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and the Colgate Clock, that we realized we hadn’t met just anyone.

We offered to give Jim a ride to the city as he was due to speak at the MWA 2012 Waterfront Conference in the city later in the morning. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) represents 620 organizations with ties to the region’s waterways in their efforts to “transform the waters of New York and New Jersey Harbor into clean and accessible places to learn, work and play”.

We spent some time chatting over breakfast before we headed back into the city. Jim Chambers confided in me that he’d just received his 11th Coast Guard license renewal. “It’s probably some sort of record at this point,” he said. “Because renewal is due every 5 years, and it includes a fairly strict physical”.

I found this concise bio of Jim online: [The Battery Park City Broadsheet Jan 22-Feb 7 2008]

With more than a half century of maritime experience behind him – decades with the NYPD marine unit, captaining the dinner boat Spirit of New York, and chairing the Mayors Cup Committee – he is recognized as one of the top go-to guys in the harbor. The most recent feather in Capt. Chambers’ nautical cap was being named consultant to Hornblower Cruises, a California-based company that took over operation of the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry.

Jim’s 2008 interview concluded with: I have been inflicted with an incurable disease. It’s called mucking around in boats. And I’m not looking for a vaccine.

Just before we left Liberty Landing Marina, Patrick went back to the Osprey, just a few slips away from us to drop off the coffee pot Jim had kindly brought over to The Greatest Loop before the photo shoot. That’s when he saw, framed on a wall of the wheelhouse, a letter of tribute to Jim Chambers for his courage in participating in the water evacuation of lower Manhattan following the attacks of 9/11.

As Patrick took the helm of The Greatest Loop to bring everyone back to Chelsea Pier, he thanked Jim with much emotion and respect for the courage he demonstrated 11 years ago, when he took part in what is now known as the largest sea evacuation in history, larger even than the storied evacuation of 339,000 British and French troops off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

The nine-hour boatlift rescued over 500,000 terrified civilians from the piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan as the twin towers of the World Trade Center burned and collapsed around them. If you are not familiar with how this rescue came together, you can view short documentary Boatlift here.

We look forward to seeing Jim again in the near future, as he’s shared with us his intention to visit the Annapolis powerboat show for the first time this year.

A bientot, Jim!