Across a narrow stretch of water from New York's JFK airport, underneath the international flight path, I am reclining on the deck of a rather rustic boat, and sipping cabernet sauvignon from a plastic beaker. Every few minutes, the deafening growl of a jumbo jet cuts through the evening air, and a pair of landing lights pierce the dusk. Admittedly, it's not the stuff glossy travel magazines are made of, but the Boatel, a floating hotel comprised of a collection of old cruisers, has become one of the recent success stories of New York City. It began boarding in early July last year, and, thanks to its quirky appeal, sold out almost immediately, right through to its mid-September closing.
Even so, when I step off the A-train at Beach 60th Street, Far Rockaway, in Queens, I wonder if I've made a mistake. I pass under a grim concrete flyover and along a pot-holed road, past imposing and unlovely brown-brick project (council) housing, with prison-like slits where windows should be. Hidden behind a petrol station, I finally spot the entrance to Marina 59, a decidedly working-class dock in Jamaica Bay, and ask two salty sea-dogs for further directions. With their assistance, I spy the blue neon Boatel sign, and find Connie Hockaday, its captain.
Originally from the tiny bit of Texas with a coast, Hockaday, now in her late twenties, is an artist with a long-standing love affair with the water. At 19, she joined the Floating Neutrinos, a band of wanderers who sail around the world in a junk boat, and helped them construct a 50-foot catamaran. She later moved to Portland, Oregon, to study for her master's degree in fine art, and began building another boat by hand. There, in the Pacific North-west, she also came across the legend of Nancy Boggs, a 19th-century siren who ran brothels aboard boats in order to evade the law.
"I wanted to build a business that evades the law too, but I didn't really want to run a brothel," Hockaday says wryly. "I don't actually care that much about the rental of the boats. I just want people to come and stay and have an experience." To that end, she runs lectures, screenings and events most summer evenings on the floating platform stage at the centre of the Boatel, featuring friends and interested parties.
Hockaday shows me to my ship, the New York New York, but isn't exactly sure what species of boat it is, other than "an early 1980s leisure craft". She is compact and cosy inside, with a sleeping nook big enough for two in her pointy end, a table with banquette seating, a sideboard and sink (though not connected), a small breakfast bar and deck space enough for essential evening drinks, plus the original steering wheel and radio.
The other four boats are slightly bigger: Americano, the most Miami Vice of the vessels, has a long sloping bow, tinted windows and sleeps three to four; Crumb is a quaint, comfortable four-berth with one careful, elderly, previous owner; Queen Zenobia is a 30-foot classic yacht for three to four people, and Ms Nancy Boggs is a remodelled 1970s houseboat with space for five and several sundecks.
Hockaday found all the boats abandoned in the marina, and with the help of a team of volunteers, spruced them up in under a month in early summer.
I check in on the penultimate Sunday, when Hockaday, who harbours no ambitions to become a hotelier, is ready for a rest. The Boatel isn't even an official business – the overnight fee ($50-$100 per boat, $100 for Ms Nancy Boggs) is actually a donation. And P Diddy's superyacht these vessels are not. It's a bit like camping – the boats have no running water or electricity, but there are facilities: a washroom with showers at the end of the jetty and a covered outdoor dining area with gas barbecues. Guests bring and cook their own food and drink, which encourages inter-vessel interaction. There is (brace yourself) no internet and no bar, and creature comforts stretch to a torch, candles and a mosquito coil.
But no one can say they weren't warned. When guests book a boat, they receive a welcome letter which unapologetically states: "Let's first get one thing straight. We are not a real hotel. This is an adventure at best and an art project at worst."
I head over to the floating platform stage for tonight's talk – by Adrienne Skye Roberts, an artist from San Francisco, who delivers a deft multimedia presentation about her grandfather, a communist Jew who was jailed in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s when the political paranoia in the US was at fever pitch. Some guests watch from the decks of their craft, dangling feet into the water, while the rest of us curl up on blankets around the edge of the platform.
After Adrienne is subjected to a Q&A, I chat to fellow overnighting audience members including Eric, a softly spoken west coast musician who is in town on tour tonight, and Marie, a lecturer at Yale University and a fellow boating enthusiast. This is what Hockaday is after, not, as she fears, "for it to turn into a frat-boy destination where wealthy people just come to hang out on boats".
For now, she and the boats are safe from the frat-boys, but for how long, who knows? Only an hour (and just $2.25) on the A-train subway from Manhattan, the long, wide beaches of Rockaway, reminiscent of the French Atlantic coast, have been having a moment. This summer, the working-class Queens neighbourhood has become a red-hot hipster hangout, the weekend alternative for the cool kids who can't afford (or can't stomach) the excess and exorbitant prices of the Hamptons, and New York's growing band of surfing enthusiasts. The newly refurbished wooden boardwalk has been awash with wetsuits, skinny jeans, vintage bikes and directional haircuts rarely sighted outside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn's most fashionable ghetto. And where the hipsters lead, the frat-boys almost inevitably follow.
A new hub of slick food and drink concessions at Beach 98th St opened this summer too, with a coffee shop staffed by model sorts, a classy Thai food outlet, the now-renowned Rockaway Tacos, and a bar selling beers and margaritas. There are still many elements of the old, rough-round-the-edges Rockaway to be enjoyed though – a few minutes from the trendy taco shop is Connolly's, a lairy local Irish boozer, where the summer tipple of choice is the lethal frozen piña colada, with optional (unwise) extra rum "floaters" on top. The return A-train journey can become tricky after three.
On Monday morning, I wake in my surprisingly comfortable watery crib to bright blue September skies, and only the sound of seagulls on the dock. I pull on my bikini, and stroll the five minutes to the beach, past the projects, the yellow school buses loading up local children, and the queue for the social security office, which stretches around the block. The sand is empty save for a couple of fishermen, and by rights I should not be swimming. The beaches officially closed on Labour Day, the previous weekend, but I'm not wasting the chance to begin my week by diving (albeit briefly) into Atlantic breakers before I have to head home. The Boatel may not be boutique luxury, but it's the perfect place to press pause on hectic land-lubber city life. Just don't tell the frat-boys.
• The Boatel (+1 718 945 4500, marina59.com) is booking now for its next season, running from 17 May-16 September. Boats cost $50-$100 a night
