Frank Koester
Erik Baard, who founded the Long Island City Community Boathouse, insists that his club is separate and distinct from the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club.
The founder of the Long Island City Community Boathouse could be paddling his way into hot water.
A Brooklyn organization, the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, took Erik Baard to court, suing the boathouse founder for trademark infringement after Baard dissed them on a boathouse-branded Facebook page.
The Dredgers booted Baard two years back, and its officers claim they own the name and logo for the volunteer-run Queens boathouse.
Baard affiliated the organization with the nonprofit Dredgers after he formed the Long Island City group, around 2004. The union enabled Baard’s fledgling paddling group to accept donations and purchase insurance.
Baard maintains the two groups were always separate and distinct.
“They’re claiming that all the money we raised, all the boats we purchased with that money — all of it belongs to them,” Baard said.
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The boathouse, which operates out of a former meat-packing plant at 46-01 Fifth St., lets enthusiasts take canoes and kayaks into Anable Basin.
Attorney Gerard Dunne, a Dredgers member who is representing them in court, said everything belongs to the Dredgers. The money Baard raised went to the Dredgers, which wrote the checks to buy new boats and equipment, he said.
Baard ran afoul of the Dredgers after he stepped down as head of the boathouse, in 2008, and began taking out the boats without authorization and criticizing members of the Brooklyn club.
In 2011, the Dredgers formally barred him from participating in the boathouse’s affairs.
But the club members say Baard persisted, using the Facebook page he created for the boathouse to criticize the Dredgers.
That’s when Dunne sued for trademark infringement.
“He doesn’t play nice with others in authority,” Dunne said. “Having been the founder does not give him ownership of the name . . . to use any way he sees fit.”
