As they sped along, they blew past lone fishermen and placid sailboats, shouting and revving their engines. A handful of motorboats accompanied them, shooting videos for Instagram. From the top of a floating prison barge, inmates cheered as the riders did doughnuts.
It was the last weekend of June, and this was the third annual New York City Jet Ski Invasion, a gathering of enthusiasts who take to the river as a kind of parade for their rights. This is a yearly declaration of their existence, an acknowledgment that the water around New York is open to all.
City boaters and kayakers generally view “personal watercraft” (as the police call them) with disdain. The riders are essentially understood as the bikers of the surf.
And although the Police Department and the Coast Guard are not officially onboard, they have little choice but to tolerate it. They do so with apparent good humor, however, following closely beside the procession to make sure nobody gets hurt.
The invasion is a simple idea with a precise schedule. At 11 a.m., participants met at the Pepsi-Cola sign.
They traveled the narrow expanse of the East River and concluded in the Hudson River by the George Washington Bridge. Those at the front of the flotilla wore orange safety vests to keep the pack at a consistent, safe pace, blowing whistles if any riders tried to race ahead.
It lasted two hours. Organizers expected about 400 riders, but there were only around 200 in the end. Still, it was a jarring sight, one that would be more familiar in the Bahamas than from the banks of the East River.
The man who seemed to be in charge was a tattooed handyman, James Reichelt. Everybody on the water just calls him “White Boy.” He rides a lime-green jet ski with a Jolly Roger insignia painted on the front and a Jolly Roger flag flying in the rear.
He first became known for his huge boat parties, where friends and strangers would lash their boats together and hop from vessel to vessel. Then in 2006, he founded the New York City Pirates, one of at least seven teams of waterborne thrill seekers in the New York City area.
“Eighty-five percent of people, they don’t know my real name,” Reichelt said. “This is my lifestyle. And I’m dedicated to it.”
The Pirates began as a loose network that over the past decade or so has blossomed into a sort of fraternal lodge, an organization of 80 men and women who pay dues and have Christmas parties.
The Pirates are an eclectic clan of subway train conductors, retired correction officers and construction workers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Reichelt clearly prides himself on what he has created and on his commitment; his teammates seem to respect his position, even if they say he can sometimes be overbearing.
“White Boy is the most humble guy I know,” said Crystal Ventura, one of the few female Pirates. “He is always fixing problems.”
Reichelt first put the Jet Ski Invasion together in 2017 with Strong Island, a club based on Long Island. Now in its third year, the gathering has become even bigger, and is a testament to Reichelt’s vision. For him, his jet ski is the perfect escape, and he’s eager to spread the gospel, particularly among law enforcement agencies.
“This is the second year we’ve been working with them, and we talked to them about safety and security for everybody out there on the water,” said David Schuhlein, a spokesman for the Coast Guard. “It wasn’t quite a Coast Guard-approved event, but we are hopefully moving in that direction.”
In order to achieve that distinction, the Jet Ski Invasion would need to abide by certain provisions, like providing its own medical boats and security. At the moment, the invasion was tolerated if everyone behaved.
One logistical challenge is the increasingly crowded harbor. This year, the New York City Ferry Service added additional routes. Personal watercraft tourism has recently expanded its presence, too. And while the waterways are open to the public, not everybody is happy about it.
“My greatest fear with jet skis is not that I’ll be hit, but that I’ll witness a terrible accident,” said Nancy Brous, a kayaker who lives in the city and was on the water the afternoon of the invasion. “But they go so fast, and their operators often seem to be sort of performing for onlookers on the shore or piers more than paying attention to what’s in front of them.”
There is also a popular Facebook page frequented by professional captains and yacht operators that is filled with commenters complaining about the nuisance of personal watercraft. (They can reach speeds of at least 70 mph.)
“Those of us who are out there 52 weeks of the year, we actually prefer the winter, so we don’t have to deal with them,” said Christopher Costa, a professional captain who runs the group. “I have an absolutely perfect safety record,” he added, “and I don’t want to ruin it because of some idiot.”
But Adam Schwartz, the owner of Sea the City, a tour company based in Jersey City, New Jersey, said he believed this reaction to be a type of snobbery.
“Jet skiing is one of the lowest price points to entry to get into boating generally, and certainly in New York,” he said.
With an average cost of $5,000 to $15,000, motorized water scooters are tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than a typical jet boat. “They just shut down large swaths of the Hudson River for a sailboat race sponsored by major corporations and multibillionaires,” he added. “But the jet ski event was much more complained about.”
Despite any potential class disputes, Reichelt knows that if he wants to actually turn New York City into a respected jet-skiing destination — “like Miami,” he said — he has to be more careful than ever before.
“There are eyes on us,” Reichelt said.
Last year, at one of the huge boat parties Reichelt hosts in Pelham Bay in the Bronx, he and many of the Pirates witnessed a man smash full speed into an anchored vessel in the middle of the night. (Riding personal watercraft after dark is illegal.) A woman was on the back of his machine. Reichelt heard a loud smack, he said, and he dove into the water to save them. Others jumped in as well. They were able to pull them both to the shore, but only the woman survived.
The man died at the hospital. It devastated them.
So, at a team meeting a week before the invasion, Reichelt emphasized that there would be no drinking while driving, and they were not to operate their vehicles after dusk. They were not to leave anybody behind, either.
“Things do unfortunately happen, like with anything else,” said Josh Irizarry, a Pirate since the early days. “We’ll probably always be rescuing someone.”
But you wouldn’t have known it from their moods that afternoon in late June. When fans on the shore greeted them with shouts, they responded in turn.
As they stormed underneath the Manhattan Bridge toward the Statue of Liberty, riding mere feet from one another, they shot over high fives. They launched airborne off the wakes and the waves. One couple, toward the end of the route, stopped for a break, locking their feet together as their machines slowly spun in a circle.
Reichelt returned to the home marina last, as the rest of the Pirates watched him from the parking lot. He was aboard a towboat, his lime-green jet ski being pulled behind.
It had broken down just as the invasion started.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.