If you’re near the Hudson River on a beautiful summer day, you may see a large sailboat glide by. Maybe there’s a school group trying their hand at steering and raising the sail. Or perhaps there are passengers just enjoying a day on the water.
That boat is the Clearwater, a unique floating classroom and cultural center.
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the sloop’s parent organization, was founded in 1966 by folk musician Pete Seeger and his filmmaker wife, Toshi. The river was severely polluted by toxins coming from upstate power plants. The group’s advocacy helped start the decades-long cleanup of the Hudson and helped lead to the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972. Today, the river is cleaner, but a lot of work remains.
The sailing trips educate people on the river’s history and ecology and encourage them to care for it. The organization has inspired sailing classroom programs in other states, like Michigan, Florida and Ohio.
But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. The group had an emergency fundraising appeal in 2024 after the pandemic disrupted sails for two years.
“It really validated our importance to the community,” executive director David Toman says. “We raised $350,000 in three weeks.”
The Clearwater sails out of New York ports and the Alpine Boat Basin in the Palisades.
To learn more, visit clearwater.org.
