It’s 40 degrees outside, but it feels like a blustery 15 on the 80-foot yacht rocking on the Hudson River Tuesday afternoon. The Empire State Building sits off in the distance; the Statue of Liberty glistens from afar. And front and center, sprawled on the bow, is the statuesque Ireland Basinger Baldwin, teenage daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, clad in nothing but an itsy-bitsy tribal print bikini.
Passersby on boats gawk at the Basinger look-alike — twisting and contorting all 6-foot-2 of herself as the wind whips her braid ’round like a rag doll.
In between setups, the crew — clad in winter hats, long underwear and puffer coats — dashes into the cabin, while a poised 17-year-old Baldwin follows behind. The stylist chases after her.
“Don’t you want the robe?!” she asks with concern.
“Oh, sure. That’d be great, thanks,” Baldwin answers, looking (and sounding) at least five years older than the high school senior she is.
It’s Baldwin’s first-ever photo shoot as a newly signed model for IMG — and she’s already a pro.
PHOTOS: IRELAND BALDWIN IN SIZZLING BIKINI SHOTS
Up until this point, Baldwin has probably been best known as the victim of her father’s infamous 2007 phone rant during which he called her “a thoughtless little pig.” (Of that incident, she told Page Six Magazine in September: “People made that out to be a way bigger deal than it was. He’s said stuff like that before because he’s frustrated. For me, it was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ ”)
But now, she’s setting out to make a name for herself in modeling and acting — industries her long-divorced parents have already conquered — and proving to the world that she’s nothing but a motivated, Amazonian babe.
And, a bit of a rebel.
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It’s no secret that her father has had a torrid relationship with the New York Post, and yet here she is making her modeling debut in its pages.
But the athletic stunner says she and her dad carve their own paths.
“You know, he has his own agenda and I have my own,” she explains.
“I think he’s very outspoken and he has his opinions, and he’s him and I’m me, and I know he’s done things that he regrets himself and that he’s sorry for, but you know, the past is the past,” says Baldwin of her father, who got in a scuffle with a Post photographer and female reporter back in February.
Ireland’s mother Kim Basinger in 1992. (©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Coll)
Ireland Basinger Baldwin is looking to make a name for herself in modeling and acting. (Tamara Beckwith)
(Tamara Beckwith)
Ireland Basinger Baldwin (Tamara Beckwith)
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That’s not to say she hasn’t learned from the “30 Rock” star.
Although she’s all mom in the looks department, the up-and-coming model is all Baldwin when it comes to social media.
Whether she’s tweeting to her 30,000-plus followers about getting a “female boner whenever that Victoria Secret commercial comes on” or doling out health and fitness advice on her Tumblr about everything from her favorite protein powder to hookup etiquette, Baldwin’s got her father’s attention-loving gene.
“My mom has kept to herself . . . she’s really not involved at all with social media,” admits the model, who currently lives with “L.A. Confidential” star Basinger in Los Angeles and is finishing up her senior year via an independent study program.
“But my dad is someone who is very involved with social media and is very well known for expressing his opinions in a very loud way . . . he’s a funny guy. He’s so ballsy. He’s taught me well, I guess you could say.”
Well enough that Baldwin landed her current beau of seven months, stand-up paddle boarder Slater Trout, thanks to her online social-networking savvy.
“I stalked him on Instagram for a really long time. And I kind of got brave and decided to Twitter message him because he was following me, as well.”
The two talked for months before actually meeting, by chance, at a Starbucks one day.
“It wasn’t ‘Catfish’ style or anything,” says Baldwin, who boasts an impressive five-coffee-a-day habit (her favorite drink is the “Liquid Cocaine” from Starbucks’ secret menu).
She also reveals that, contrary to her past declarations, she’s no longer saving herself for marriage: “For a long time, yeah, that’s kind of what I believed in . . . now I have a different outlook.”
And she says her parents approve of her boyfriend.
“They know he’s my best friend and that he’s definitely beyond his years,” she says of the 17-year-old Trout.
“My dad has yet to meet him,” she admits, “but I’m ready . . . he’s not one of those dads. He is protective but at the same time, he is very accepting . . . he’s not the crazy dad that wants to kill the boyfriend.”
Even though they live on separate coasts, Baldwin and her dad “text and talk on the phone all the time.”
And Monday night, Baldwin celebrated her pop’s 55th birthday by attending his Broadway play, “Orphans.”
“I hadn’t seen [Hilaria] or my dad since she’s been pregnant,” says Baldwin, who’s excited to take on the added responsibility of “big sister” (her stepmother is expecting a girl in late summer).
“It’s going to be fun, I think, for her to have that somewhat kind of badass older sister who will take you to your first concert and give you a fake ID and all that. I always wished I had that when I was younger.
“I want to be able to provide for her — I’m going to be much, much older than her. I’ve learned from my youth and I want her to not make the same mistakes. But she will. We all do.”
(For Baldwin, that includes the “sixth-grade mistake” of piercing her belly button, which she hid from her parents for two years.)
If the all-American beauty has any say, by the time her younger sis is old enough to drive, Ireland will already be “the next Tina Fey.”
“I want to do everything the right way,” Baldwin says of her career trajectory. The end goal is movies, ideally comedies.
“Rather than getting involved with different projects and films that I’m not ready for and starting off on the wrong foot, I want to work my way up,” explains the Hollywood spawn, who plans to take a year off before attending college.
That includes this New York Post shoot, an upcoming “It Girl” feature in W magazine, a piece in Vanity Fair (with a portrait shot by Patrick Demarchelier earlier this week) and, hopefully, a Guess campaign and Sports Illustrated and Victoria’s Secret gigs down the line, if her agency has its wishes.
And maybe even an avant-garde photo shoot inspired by TLC’s “My Strange Addiction.”
“I’m obsessed with that show!” Baldwin gushes.
One of her favorite episodes? The woman addicted to eating tire scraps.
“Can you imagine getting a colonic and a whole tire comes out?!” she laughs.
“These people on the show always start off explaining
their addictions with: ‘When I was young, my parents got divorced . . .’ ” Baldwin says.
“Hey,” she adds with a laugh, “you don’t see me eating tires.”
dschuster@nypost.com