Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines

[Paul Denison]

I would like a 30 footer.

NY TIMES

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. — Boat owners are abandoning ship.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01boats.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=boats%20too%20costly%20to%20keep%20are%20litter ing%20coastlines&st=cse#secondParagraph)http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/01/business/01boat.2.190.jpg (javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/04/01/business/01boats_CA1_ready.html', '01boats_CA1_ready', 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,r esizable=yes'))

Brett Flashnick for The New York Times
Gary Santos, a Mount Pleasant, S.C., councilman, checks a state notice on a forsaken sailboat.


They often sandpaper over the names and file off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable. Then they casually ditch the vessels in the middle of busy harbors, beach them at low tide on the banks of creeks or occasionally scuttle them outright.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01boats.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=boats%20too%20costly%20to%20keep%20are%20litter ing%20coastlines&st=cse

[Nanoose]

see also the "Abandoned Boats" thread.

[rbgarr]

If anyone near Charleston SC sees this boat abandoned, let me know ASAP. I'll need a winter retirement home someday and it's been on the market a long time! :D http://tinyurl.com/c3mhya

[daveboling]

Would someone refresh me on the maritime laws of claiming abandoned vessels?

[Thermo]

My father bought a waterfront lot on the Chesapeake in the 1970's to keep his boat. Half acre lot and a little house, a pier in a muddy cove near Middle River- for $9500. He sold this lot to some yuppies in 1987 for $100,000. So did all our neighbors with their houses. We moved to West Virginia where stuff is cheap.

Now this lot lists for $350,000 and we couldn't dream of owning anything close to it today.

Nobody can afford to keep a boat on the water anymore, even a small one.

[martin schulz]

The same boats marina-owners were so eager to please, while rejecting wooden boats...