White Cap Marine Towing and Salvage is a small

marine salvage Marine salvage is the process of recovering a ship and its cargo after a shipwreck or other maritime casualty. Salvage may encompass towing, lifting a vessel, or effecting repairs to a ship. Salvors are normally paid for their efforts. Howev ...

firm based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The firm operates out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, a small inlet that connects to the much larger Jamaica Bay. The firm is owned by Jack and Bernie Schachner, and specializes in rescuing or salvaging the smaller recreational vessels and smaller fishing vessels that operate out of the smaller inlets around Jamaica Bay. White Cap is also a franchisee of Sea Tow, the leading marine assistance services company. The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

employs the firm to remove abandoned craft from the ecologically protected Gerritsen Creek, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. In 2009 the ''

New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...

'' reported on White Cap's assistance in the salvage of a large, historic brass bell. The 500 pound bell had once been at the top of a {{convert, 1200, ft, m, adj=on tower at

Coney Island Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...

, and had been lost when the tower collapsed during a storm, 95 years earlier. The typical salvage fees for bringing smaller abandoned recreational craft to where they can be disposed of safely started at $1500. According to ''

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

'' and the ''Brooklyn Daily'', many boaters simply abandoned their recreational boats in 2008, without realizing they could still be identified as the boats' owners and could still be fined to pay for the boats' disposal. According to a profile of the firm in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', larger salvage operations can earn the firm tens of thousands of dollars. Bernie Schachner described rescuing the crew of a small fishing vessel who offered them "20,000 clams"—with "clams" referring to actual mollusks, not cash.

References

Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn Marine salvors Companies based in Brooklyn