You are reading

A new boat club forms in LIC

Location of warehouse where club gets water access

Beige warehouse: location where the new club gets water access

May 13, 2013 By Bill Parry

A new Long Island City-based canoe club has formed, founded by a number of past LIC Community Boathouse members.

The group—called HarborLAB (LAB stands for Learning Adventure Boating)—was created by Erik Baard, who founded the LIC Boathouse in 2003.

Baard stepped down as the chairman of the LIC Boathouse in 2008 and since then has been involved in a series of highly-publicized arguments with a smaller, affiliated boating group– called The Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club—which later assumed control of the LIC Boathouse.

For Baard and other former LIC Boathouse members, HarborLAB represents a fresh start.

HarborLAB had its inaugural fleet launch on Saturday, when its members took part in the Bronx River Flotilla, a 5 km canoe race on the Bronx River. The new club currently has about 25 members and about one dozen canoes/kayaks. However, by June the group anticipates that it will have about 30 canoes/kayaks.

The club plans to offer programs in environmental education, stewardship and restoration from a launch site located on Newtown Creek. The club is able to get access to the water via a relationship it has forged with the owner of a warehouse at 53-21 Vernon Blvd.

The group is currently storing its boats in the backyards of friends in Sunnyside and Glendale. However, members are trying to raise funds for their own boathouse next to the Vernon Blvd. warehouse launch site.

In the meantime, Baard is still doing battle with the Gowanus Dredgers Club. Baard is being sued by Dredgers members for violating copyright law, when he established the LIC Community Boathouse Facebook page after he left LIC Community Boathouse.

Baard claims that the Dredgers were merely an affiliate group and never merged with the LIC Community Boathouse, so it isn’t theirs to claim.

email the author: news@queenspost.com

2 Comments

Click for Comments 
Consider This....

If only I had a sailboat could be a member…wonder if they do charter trips would be really nice

Reply

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

MTA opens three new modernized elevators at the Queens Plaza subway station in Long Island City

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced the opening of three new modernized elevators at the Queens Plaza E/M/R subway station in Long Island City earlier this month as part of a larger accessibility and safety upgrades throughout the transit system.

The work included a full replacement of the cab and equipment within the cab, shaft and pit, along with two new elevator head houses located at street level. Crews also made modifications to the shaft and pit as needed to allow for new equipment. The elevator machine room and electrical and mechanical equipment received replacements and other modernization efforts for reliability.

Queens Together launches ‘Unofficial US Open Dining Guide’ encouraging fans to sample restaurants along the 7 line

Aug. 20, 2025 By Shane O’Brien

The US Open returns to Flushing Meadows Corona Park this Sunday, with more than 1 million attendees anticipated to take mass transit to the iconic annual tennis event. With hundreds of thousands of fans set to take the 7 out to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, there is a world of delicious local eateries lying beneath the elevated train tracks should any fan wish to stop en-route to the US Open.

Can Queens’ food scene thrive with both trucks and restaurants?

Aug. 19, 2025 By Jessica Militello

In Jackson Heights at 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, Roosevelt Avenue is buzzing with energy as commuters file in and out of subway cars and onto the street and cars and trucks grapple to get down the busy road. The street is filled with rows of shops and restaurants, along with food carts, street vendors and food trucks along the avenue. The almost-but-not-quite the weekend lag leaves hungry commuters faced with another choice to make throughout their day and the array of food truck options in busy areas like Jackson Heights offers customers convenience and delicious food without breaking the bank, two features that can feel vital, particularly with rising costs of living and pressure from inflation.