A solution for derelict boats!

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Not gonna happen. Florida is blessed with just derelict boats. Check out the cities in CA where the sidewalks are converted to tent cities. Unable to do anything about that so what to expect where it comes to boats? Nada.

It occurs to me that there are three types of “derelict” boats.
The first is the type that you are referring to which is a shelter for an otherwise homeless person. The second is a boat either sunk or washed up on shore after a storm. The third is a boat left at anchor and abandoned after a person who has discovered that they can no longer afford to keep it and it is oo much trouble or in too bad a shape to sell.
All three are a problem, but I would think that the second and third should be easier to deal with, and getting rid of those should solve at least half of the problem.

Al, S/V Finlandia

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Blueh20bound last time they did a wreck clean up here every unregistered boat had a very large yellow sticker stuck on it with a phone number and warning that the boat needed to be moved within a certain time or it would be disposed off. Funny enough I never heard any complaints that the wrong boat was crushed. True it's hard to identify if the disposer is the real owner. But if a vessel is unregistered then it's fair game in my opinion. No different to having an unregistered car towed away.
The $500 bounty works as it encourages owners to dispose of their boat rather than just abandoned them. I can think of 5 boats anchored near us that the owners cannot give away and I bet if they could take them to a wreckers it would save them a lot of headaches.
Cheers

+1
I think that this is the best solution I have heard so far. Couple this with a small annual fee for each boat to pay for the cost of disposing of the boat.

Al, Ss/V Finlandia

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

Florida has a derelict boat program. You get a water cop to mark your boat as a derelict. Then sign over the title and they crush the boat up. No cost to the owner (the costs come out of the boat registration fees). A number of boats in Key West did that when Ian came through.

If that is true, why are they not doing it?

Al, S/V Finlandia

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by Chotu

That’s not what’s down in Florida anymore. Those people are mostly gone.

it’s absentee owners now. Too cheap to get a marina.

The boats are all empty. Locked up. Not in that bad of condition. that’s what is choking up the anchorages now and dragging.

you can stay in Anchorage for a week and not a person comes and goes from the majority of boats.

I have seen that also, Chotu.
I have anchored for several days around several other boats and never seen another human being.

Al, S/V Finlandia

[Luwiluwi]

Originally Posted by Benz

There are also NOAA grants available for entities willing to clean up derelict/sunken boats. I worked for a nonprofit which cleaned up wrecks and debris with a NOAA grant, and astonishingly a lot of grant money is left on the table because no one wants to invest in a crane and barge and tidy up these wrecks.
So there's a solution already in place: what is lacking is the enterprise to carry it out.

If you can point us to those grants I’d love to have that information. We have a non profit removing derelicts around the coast in Charleston and beyond and they are constantly seeking funds. Almost exclusively their funds come from private donations.

[skipperpete]

There’s a salvage company called COPART in the US, they seem to be an outlet for unwanted boats of all sizes. The website is problematic on my Mac here in Australia so I won’t post a link but it seems like they do a booming business in reselling salvaged vessels.

[notoldbilbo]

Originally Posted by svfinlandia

It occurs to me that there are three types of “derelict” boats.
The first is the type that you are referring to which is a shelter for an otherwise homeless person. The second is a boat either sunk or washed up on shore after a storm. The third is a boat left at anchor and abandoned after a person who has discovered that they can no longer afford to keep it and it is too much trouble or in too bad a shape to sell.
All three are a problem, but I would think that the second and third should be easier to deal with, and getting rid of those should solve at least half of the problem.

Sound good to me. However...

...In most things I've been described as 'Further Right Than Genghis Khan', but remembering that all things are relative, I find it harder to be hard on the near-down-and-outs. For some, their boat is their last refuge, their last shred of individuality.... and their homes.

My perspective is, let me remind readers, that of Merrie Olde England. But I was brought up on Woodie Guthrie's songs of the Great Depression and 'The Okies'....who were also American citizens.

We have similar problems over here with citizens who live on canal boats around our ageing canal network, and a few tucked up rivers. They OWN those boats, most of them work or have Veterans Pensions, many of them have kids at local schools. They pay taxes when those are due. Quasi-government organisations are working to move them out so there's more space for revenue-generating 'holiday charter' boats.

Those folk have rights. So do yours. Protect them - for 'you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone'.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by Luwiluwi

If you can point us to those grants I’d love to have that information. We have a non profit removing derelicts around the coast in Charleston and beyond and they are constantly seeking funds. Almost exclusively their funds come from private donations.

It's been a while since I looked, but I'd be inclined to dig around their website or google some key words. I wasn't the one who applied for the grants--we had a grantwriter for that, so I only saw the webpage once or twice.

[flightlead404]

This thread needs to be focused, clarified, defined. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of people griping.

I get it, and I gripe too. And I’ve been down here in Fl for 5 months and the keys for 3 trying to anchor.

But, there needs to be a clear problem statement here or we’re all talking about different things

Environmental issues around abandoned boats?
Environmental issues from live aboard a without holding tanks?
Loss of anchoring space due to permanent non-moving liveaboards? Or due to abandoned boats? Or due to people anchoring as free wet storage? (3 different problems with likely different solutions)
Poor people living on boats? (If you live on a boat, no matter how crappy, you aren’t homeless)

Many of these “underfunded” loveaboards work locally and are not paid enough to afford to live ashore (service industry mostly)

What’s the issue?

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Yeah let’s get the police involved, what can go wrong?

I think we have a bit more to be concerned with than some derelict boats. I avoid anchorages where police boats patrol, I look for anchorages where only boats like us are

Please publish your list or anchorages 😀

[JPA Cate]

Bwahahahaha!

Leads to overcrowding.

Ann

[lifeofreilly57]

[QUOTE=Chotu;3756043]that might be true, but I’m also thinking of places like Newport, actually.

It’s stinks that there’s a 14 day limit on anchoring there.

Newport is a popular destination, its also a racing and cruising spot. Many used to anchor their party boats there all season long, leaving no room for arriving boats, or anyone else, this created more than one problem. Realistically a boat only needs to leave for 48 hours to return, there are plenty of marvelous anchoring spots in Narragansett Bay, some just across from Newport.
The current regulations allow more people to access Newport Harbor both inside and north of Goat Island. Unfortunately the rental moorings went from $30 a night to $75 per night in just 4 years, but there's enough anchorage space for quite a few boats, it's the only way to fairly dole out anchorage space in an extremely popular port.
During popular events the Harbor Masters job gets even more aggravating as boats will anchor in the access channels and create navigational challenges, remember, several ferries have to access the port, in tight channels illegally anchored boats create a difficult situation for bigger commercial boats.
Personally, I wouldn't want to deal with the headaches the Newport Harbor Master officers have to contend with, especially during large events like the Jazz Festival.
The 14 day limit allows many more boats to access the anchorage.

[KelseyB]

Forgive me if I repeat what anyone else has already said, I read the first handful of responses but not all of them. I felt I should contribute because I have just written a lengthy article about derelict boats in Virginia stemming from months of research, forthcoming in the spring issue of Chesapeake Bay Magazine in case anyone is interested.

The problem with accountability is that simply knowing who the owner is doesn't always solve the problem. It might help, it might not. If a boat is abandoned and the owner is known, 1) you have to actually track them down. 2) the state has to take them to court. 3) if the state does track them down and take them to court, they get a fine or jail time, but that doesn't mean the boat is removed. That person may not be able to pay for removal and disposal, which is likely why they abandoned it in the first place. Most people who abandon boats have financial troubles, suffer from mental illnesses, disabilities, or addictions, or have some other factor that prevents them from being able to pay, especially considering that the cost includes thousands for removal, thousands to chunk it up, and thousands for landfill fees, assuming there is a landfill willing to take fiberglass and somewhere to put hazardous materials, which there may not be. They're the same people who probably can't afford insurance or can't get it on their boats because the boats are over 40 years old (BoatUS cut off insurance to boats over 40 in the past couple of years, and many other companies are following suit). Or maybe there is no one to be held accountable — maybe the owner passed away and didn't leave the boat to anyone, or maybe they did and that person has no idea what to do about it.

This leaves removal and disposal costs to the state or a nonprofit. In Virginia, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission is responsible; however, they have not had a single dollar of funding to remove boats in their entire history as an agency, until this year. There's a nonprofit that has sprung up here to try and help, called the Vessel Disposal and Reuse Foundation, but one nonprofit shouldn't and can't be responsible for the hundreds of abandoned boats in Virginia waters.

So better enforcement could help with some of the abandoned boats — maybe. But enforcement alone would most likely slap a lot of people with a fine while leaving the boats to rot. What's needed is proactive policies that prevent boats from becoming abandoned in the first place — actual funding allocated to the state agencies responsible for removal, voluntary vessel turn-in programs, better methods to recycle or repurpose fiberglass (there are pilot projects using crushed fiberglass as fuel for cement production) to make disposal more affordable by creating a way to recoup some of the cost, and perhaps marine police checking in on owners of less-than-seaworthy boats before they are abandoned to ask if they need help, if they need information about disposal options, etc. Success also depends on consistent reporting. Every state has an agency responsible for removing abandoned boats (they're hazards to the waterway, as we all know), but they can't know where those boats are unless people report them. And those agencies won't get funding to remove them unless people start telling the state that this issue is important to them.

[lifeofreilly57]

Originally Posted by flightlead404

This thread needs to be focused, clarified, defined. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of people griping.

I get it, and I gripe too. And I’ve been down here in Fl for 5 months and the keys for 3 trying to anchor.

But, there needs to be a clear problem statement here or we’re all talking about different things

Environmental issues around abandoned boats?
Environmental issues from live aboard a without holding tanks?
Loss of anchoring space due to permanent non-moving liveaboards? Or due to abandoned boats? Or due to people anchoring as free wet storage? (3 different problems with likely different solutions)
Poor people living on boats? (If you live on a boat, no matter how crappy, you aren’t homeless)

Many of these “underfunded” loveaboards work locally and are not paid enough to afford to live ashore (service industry mostly)

What’s the issue?

Many in the Key West service industry can't afford the rents there, so they live aboard. Some individuals have bought and anchored boats there just to rent out to others, this is another issue that exists in the gray areas of the laws. Are they using holding tanks? Are they capable of moving if needed? Etc, etc. On one hand I understand the need for affordable living space for hard working people in the tourist service industry, but what are the regulatory issues that these situations create?
How do local municipalities regulate situations like this to prevent it from becoming a derelict boat graveyard.
Trying to take possession of a derelict boat by a municipality is a lengthy and expensive venture, which becomes an expensive burden for the tax payers in that area. Unfortunately there's no easy answer, the balance between fair regulation and enforcement is a tricky one.
How would you feel if your tax dollars in your municipality were sucked up dealing with those living for free in your back yard, using municipal services, taking up scarce anchoring space while you foot the bill? This is often the issue that creates friction between the cruising community and local towns. Due to the actions of some bad actors we all get painted with a broad brush as freeloaders.
Its a really difficult issue in Florida, where many a boat goes to die.

[cappy208]

I’m not a lawyer. But this is probably a 4th amendment violation. Unless the state is a ‘stop and ID’ state, it is illegal to demand the IDs of anyone ‘unless the police have ‘reasonable, articulable suspicion’ you have/are (or are about to) commit a crime. This is related to ‘motor vehicle laws’ in each state.