The Hudson River sloop Clearwater — one of the greatest legacies of the folk icon Pete Seeger and the flagship of one of the nation’s oldest music-rooted activist organizations — may never sail again, as the coronavirus pandemic halts its activities and threatens its solvency.
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Just over a decade ago, on May 3, 2009, Seeger took center stage at Madison Square Garden for a 90th birthday concert to benefit the Clearwater. More than 40 performers — including Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Joan Baez, Dave Matthews, Arlo Guthrie, Ani DiFranco and more — acknowledged their deep artistic debt to the pioneering folk musician.
Now, without a financial lifeline from the music community and others, Seeger’s Clearwater organization may cease operating, according to a statement emailed to supporters Friday.
“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shaken Clearwater’s fragile financial situation beyond our means, and with no classroom programs, events, or sailing season, Clearwater may be faced with closure,” the statement reads. “To try and fend off that scenario, we are drastically reducing our operations immediately. This includes letting go of more than half of our staff, including several office staff and much of the sloop’s crew.”
Seeger, who passed away in 2014 at age 94, was one of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century and a committed activist. He sang for the labor movement (“Talkin’ Union”), progressive politics (“If I Had A Hammer”), the anti-war movement (“Where Have All The Flowers Gone”), the fight against economic inequality (Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”) and the Civil Rights movement (“We Shall Overcome”).
In the mid 1960s, he conceived of the Clearwater, a 106-foot-long replica of a 19th century wooden Dutch sailing vessel, as a tangible act of environmentalism and grass-roots activism.
“Some people might think it’s the most frivolous thing in the world to raise money for a sailboat,” said Seeger, according to a report on an early fundraiser in the New York Times. “But we want people to love the Hudson, not to think of it as a convenient sewer.”
Since its maiden sail from a Maine shipyard to New York Harbor in the summer of 1969, the Clearwater has welcomed countless novice sailors, particularly school children. The Clearwater is widely recognized for its role in the decades-long cleanup of the Hudson, for its advocacy of environmental and social justice campaigns and for its environmental education, which has inspired other sailing-based programs nationwide. Its history of female captains has given it a unique role within the women’s movement. And from its mast flies a rainbow flag, a symbol of its trips dedicated to empowering LGBTQ young people.
For more than 40 years, the Clearwater has staged a two-day music festival, the Great Hudson River Revival, on the shores of the river in Croton Point Park, 30-plus miles north of New York City, as its primary annual fundraiser. But with wet weather on the second day of the festival last June, the event suffered a loss of about $190,000. A smaller fundraising gala, Chefs for Clearwater, held in September, was more successful and honored New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent, among others.
But from spring through fall, the Clearwater’s sailing trips — for the general public, for private groups and for school children — generate a substantial amount of its annual budget. The coronavirus outbreak has stopped those voyages.
“While the outlook may seem bleak, this does not have to be the end of Clearwater,” the organization’s email stated. “We can save this organization. But if we are to weather this storm, it will only be with your help. Clearwater is too special of a boat — and too unique of an organization –to be lost to this pandemic.”
