I was short on time, and the evening rush hour was in full effect on the streets of Gotham. Eschewing Uber, I biked to One°15 Brooklyn Marina and avoided the snarling cacophony of car horns and idling engines. It pays to have local knowledge.

The marina is within Brooklyn Bridge Park, a 1.3-mile-long section of waterfront that was packed on the warm spring evening. I got to the water’s edge, commandeered the observation binoculars and trained the optics on Buttermilk Channel. Unlike the asphalt, the East River was filled with moving traffic all along the swirling tidal strait. A steady flow of ferries and commercial vessels atop an incoming tide and 15 knots of wind had whipped the waterway into a confused mess.

After a few minutes, she came into view, her gleaming blue hull reflecting the last of the sun’s rays. She made her way at a good clip, unconcerned with the conditions. In no time, she entered the breakwater of the marina and maneuvered into a slip. To my surprise, no one in the crowded park seemed to notice how significant of an arrival this was.

The special lady was the Elling E6, a 65-foot, Dutch-built, fast trawler that has earned a reputation as an unbreakable, bluewater steed. I was fortunate to have contacted Elling principal Anton van den Bos earlier in the week and suggested the marina to him as a stopover as the E6 made its way to its new owner in New England.

In short time, I was on board, toasting the day’s 130-nautical-mile journey with van den Bos and Operations Manager Johnno Kesteloo, and discussing potential adventures for the future. The crew was a tad weary from the day, but were thrilled when I matched Amsterdam’s finest (Heineken) with American bourbon to welcome them to my city. The nighttime temperature had dropped to the low 50s. We laughed at the absurdity of their shorts and T-shirts (“It was 82 degrees in when we left Lewes,” Kesteloo says), but the E6 was as warm as its mahogany interior when the central heating system kicked in.

As I left, I looked back on the E6, which sat aglow in her quay with the lights of Manhattan off in the distance. I snapped a few photos, one of which you see here. For a minute, I thought about how rare a visitor the Dutch vessel was to these waters, and how she came upon a crowded park with no fanfare. The people didn’t know what they were missing. 

This article was originally published in the July/August 2023 issue.