End of life boats - a new proposal from International Council of Marine Industry Associations

DownWest

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In the end we will have to start somewhere so a combination of things will have to come about. Up until now a lot of people have used Ebay as a disposal route, its easy to stick a boat on there with no reserve, someone will buy it! We have seen this at our club where boats change hands to "some bloke off ebay". Of course the bloke off ebay as soon as he finds out he has to join the club & pay storage fees or remove it just evaporates into thin air. So the club now has another dead boat sitting there & has to advertise the disposal thereof. The bloke in the pub called John actually exists, he evaporated last year & thats another one we will have to chop up!
I have lost count of the people who tell me about getting a boat and living the simple life, then getting a rude shock when they find out about running costs, esp if it is a 'project'....
 

doug748

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Yes, the British 'enthusiasm' for cast iron keels is having a final laugh. In return for saving a few pence in the initial cost of the boat, we've had a lifetime of service from a material that's not very heavy, has rusted every year, has dictated the use of dodgy stainless steel keel bolts and now isn't worth enough to fund the disposal of the boat.

In contrast the Americans have enjoyed all the benefits of lead keels and now a typical 60s / 70s 30 footer will have £2,000 -£3,000 worth of scrap value in its lead keel which will go a long way to paying for the disposal of the rest of the boat. (Cast iron will be £2 - 300 ) The last Centaur I chopped up cost £400 for the skip and three hours of quite hard work with a chainsaw and JCB.


It's a sound point. A boat with a lead keel carts around it's own disposal dowry. Unless folks are left free to just chop off the keels and leave the hulks.

So a simple provision in the legislation, that all new boats carry lead ballast pretty much solves the case. You get a better sailing boat into the bargain.


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Motor_Sailor

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So a simple provision in the legislation, that all new boats carry lead ballast pretty much solves the case. You get a better sailing boat into the bargain.

That is so simple, foolproof and a benefit at every point of the boat's life that . . . it'll never be adopted.
 

lw395

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It's a sound point. A boat with a lead keel carts around it's own disposal dowry. Unless folks are left free to just chop off the keels and leave the hulks.

So a simple provision in the legislation, that all new boats carry lead ballast pretty much solves the case. You get a better sailing boat into the bargain.


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More likely lead will be banned.

Personally I think boats are just a big example of a general disposal of plastics problem.
I don't know how many tonnes of boat grp need to be disposed of every year, but I would be surprised if it's a big percentage of plastics generally.
But it's easier to pretend to recycle yoghurt pots and so forth.
 

jac

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It's a sound point. A boat with a lead keel carts around it's own disposal dowry. Unless folks are left free to just chop off the keels and leave the hulks.

So a simple provision in the legislation, that all new boats carry lead ballast pretty much solves the case. You get a better sailing boat into the bargain.


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Which is great for boats built from 2021 onwards. What about all the boats built up till now with legal iron keels ( or no keels?)

I agree with the deposit but think it needs to be enough to cover the likely cost of scrapping the boat ( i.e. hundreds of pounds) which is probably fine on a mooring costing £1k p.a. plus. but probably not on some of the cheap moorings people brag about! if people are paying £100 p.a. for a mooring ( or less) for a boat that is worth a few hundred tops and you suddenly say that next charge is £100 plus a £400 deposit you will be back to the "Sorry mate - i sold that boat to Fred in the pub"

hence the add £50 p.a. to the mooring ( or provide a one off returnable deposit of £500) and ringfence that £50.pa to fund "wreck" removal
 

Carib

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In contrast the Americans have enjoyed all the benefits of lead keels and now a typical 60s / 70s 30 footer will have £2,000 -£3,000 worth of scrap value in its lead keel which will go a long way to paying for the disposal of the rest of the boat. (Cast iron will be £2 - 300 )

That's an interesting point - Google says £1.10/kg for scrap lead which makes my keel worth about £2,800 <smug>.
 

Stemar

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Leave your car in Shirley or Shirley Warren, Southampton, with the keys in the ignition. Sorted.
Only if it runs...

Most of the boats we're talking about can barely hobble, though I was warned when I first got my mooring off Quay Lane that if the boat broke free and ended up in Portchester, she'd be stripped of everything movable withing the hour
 

Motor_Sailor

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. . . if the boat broke free and ended up in Portchester, she'd be stripped of everything movable withing the hour

At least that was if so broke free.

In Francis B Cooke's "Cruising Hints" written about 100 years ago, he descibes the advantages and disadvantages of the various anchorages around the Thames Estuary . Places where you might leave your boat at the end of a weekend if you couldn't make it to your home anchorage on the wind and tide of the day. He says the worse place was Leigh on Sea where he discovered on returning the following weekend that everything including the pig iron ballast had been stripped from his boat.

He talks about the Cruising Association being formed so there was at least one, known trustworthy person in every port that could either keep an eye on your boat or at least recommend someone honest enough to be entrusted with it.
 

AntarcticPilot

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I remember reading somewhere that GRP is actually pretty good feedstock for making concrete - add limestone, and at the temperatures of a concrete kiln, the resins become fuel to lessen the fuel bill. It certainly makes sense that it should work; the glass is the right sort of silicate mix.
 
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