Herbert H Lehman News

Donjon Marine Refloats car ferry GOV. HERBERT H. LEHMAN. After a competitive bidding process, in late March 2012 Donjon Marine was awarded a job to refloat the 277-foot Ex-Staten Island, NY car ferry Gov. Herbert H. Lehman. The vessel sank in the Hudson River while in layup in Newburg, NY. After almost four weeks of patching and test-pumping the submerged hull, and with the use of Donjon’s 1000-ton capacity Derrick Barge Chesapeake 1000 to stabilize the vessel during refloating, the ferry was successfully refloated and returned to owners.

When the forthcoming new trio of Staten Island Ferryboats was announced about a year ago, they were described as being "Kennedy class," a description whose significance was more symbolic than factual. According to the conceptual drawings, they do indeed bear a passing resemblance to the Kennedy fleet - perhaps as much as the Merrill fleet did before it. But everyone who knows the Staten Island Ferry knows both the Kennedy class and its successor, the Barberi class, too. And when it comes to thinking about the next 35 years of crossings (the typical lifetime of a ferryboat), most regulars would probably prefer every reassurance that the newest boats would be more like the oldest (John F. Kennedy, American Legion, and Gov. Herbert H. Lehman).