A Pair of Historic Vessels Offer Summer Boating in New York Harbor
Two vessels from the South Street Seaport Museum’s historic working fleet, the 1885 schooner Pioneer and the 1930 tugboat W.O. Decker, both moored at Pier 16, are embarking on their 2026 sailing season.
Pioneer, the oldest working boat of any kind in New York Harbor, is the only iron-hulled American merchant sailing vessel still in existence and one of just two cargo sloops ever built of iron in this country.
At a time when most American cargo sloops and schooners were made of wood, the 102-foot-long Pioneer was built of riveted iron plates in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, then the country’s center for iron shipbuilding. She plied the Delaware River, carrying sand and heavy cargo. Later fitted with an engine, she had a star turn in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire as a rum-running Depression era vessel used by smugglers. She was donated to the museum in 1970.
W.O. Decker is the last remaining wooden tugboat in New York Harbor. The 52-foot tug (now listed on the National Register of Historic Places) was built in Long Island City for the Newtown Creek Towing Company. Named for a tugboat operator whose work included laying mines in New York Harbor during World War Two, W.O. Decker later hauled coal barges along the Housatonic River in Connecticut and pulled steel beams into place for the construction of bridges on the New Jersey Turnpike.
In a quixotic chapter in the intertwined history of both vessels, W.O. Decker was bought in the 1970s by poet and writer George Matteson, a former captain of Pioneer, who was allowed by the South Street Seaport Museum to berth his tugboat at Pier 16 in exchange for using her to move the organization’s fleet of historic vessels whenever the need arose. In 1986, he donated W.O. Decker to the museum, and the tug subsequently underwent a keel-to-wheelhouse restoration in 2018.
Tickets are available now for sails on both vessels that start May 29. W.O. Decker departs at 1:45pm and 2:45pm on Saturdays and Sundays, with tickets priced at $25 to $40 per person. Children aged ten and older are welcome. Pioneer’s daytime sails depart at 1pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays, with tickets priced from $5 to $50 per person. Children of all ages are welcome, and guests may be invited to help raise the sails. Pioneer also offers sunset sails on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, priced at $15 to $70. Ticket prices for both W.O. Decker and Pioneer include general admission to the South Street Seaport Museum.