You walk up the steel structure an you will see a homeless man, a few steps to your right you will see a intercom, then you hit talk and the bridge will come over and you gain access. If you have purified water, and bad karma, go to the homeless man and give him purified water.
I had a problem with this when I was first playing the game. I swam around the boat, thought there was some trick to it ... but no ... its much simpler than that.
There should be a set of stairs need the boat, you go up them, and there will be either a guard or an intercom (can't remember which). You talk to them (it) and they will lower a draw bridge for you to cross over into the city. Simple as that. If you REALLY can't find it, try quick traveling to rivet city using the map ... I think it actually lands you right where you need to be.
Through the capitol. Stick to the south-east side of the map as much as possible, then follow the quest beacon.
you go around asking people in rivet city
The chief guard in Rivet City, (known as Harkness) can be found usually in the Rivet City Market area of the ship. If you have not entered Rivet City yet you can go to the intercom near the edge and talk to Harkness and he will connect the bridge for you.
Rivet city is located on the bottom right corner of your pip-boy map.It's right there and easy to notice.
Rivet City (see the link below).
Pinkerton can be found in the broken (separate) section of Rivet City.
I assume the rivet you are asking about is a "tinners" rivet and not a more common "blind" rivet (commonly known as a "pop" rivet). If this the case the tool you want is called a "rivet set".
ammo and not vary good guns
out front, just below the drawbridge
upset -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upsetting the rivet is to compress the rivet during the installation process. That can be done with a rivet gun to "hammer" the rivet against a bucking bar, or to use a rivet squeezer to compress the rivet.
a rivet gun is a gun
A DD rivet is recognised by 2 dashes on the head of the rivet
I think there is one on top of rivet city, the run way