Abandoned boat(?)

KelticPaddler

KelticPaddler

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Joined
13 Feb 2007
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12
Location
Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland
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Hi all

I will start by saying I don't own a boat yet, but I do buy PBO.
I drive RIBs for the odd outdoor school and I sea kayak.

However I got a taste for dinghy sailing while playing safety boat at a local club.

I have been passing this boat in a club near me for around 4 years now and as far as I can tell it has not moved, been launched etc.

I enquired at the club on several occasions but no-one seems to know who owns it or can give me any details about it.

I would like to know:-

What would be the proper and correct protocol for aquiring said boat?

I think she will be a star project to refurb, as most of it is cosmetic.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Suggest you write to the owner, c/o the secretary of the club. The secretary ought to know whose it is if it's standing in their land.
 
Welcome to the forums. In our club if a boat is left on the club premises abandoned ,the club management commitee make several attempts to contact the owner then advertise it for sale and accept the highest offer.After any overdue storage fees are paid any money left over has to be kept for the owner to reclaim.

Theres usually loads of cheap boats around without the worry of an irate owner trying to reclaim it at a later date.

Have a look dinghys for sale here
 
Thanks guys.

Graham, I can't believe how many people do abandon boats. I have heard of this type of "aucton" before.

A friend of mine picked himself up a reasonable GP14 plus trailer for £100. it's outrageous.

I live on Strangford Lough (N,Ireland) and it seems to me that every boat club on the lough has its collection of "orphans".
 
Hi,

I asked the club president who boat it was. After two weeks they came back with "unfortunately the owner has passed away and no fees recieved for 1 1/2 years". I bought a GP14 for the outstanding fees £150.

Well worth digging around a bit,

Cheers

Paul /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I also did the same thing one year on with an Old Leisure 17 which was in a scrap yard on the Clyde in Glasgow. It had been put there to be renovated...3 years previously. I paid £800 for that, cleaned her up, used her for two years and sold her for £1350.

Lots of old abandoned boats and you just need to be a bit cheaky..then you might have some luck. Just remember not to be too keen, or gloat too much!

Cheers

Paul /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
We have been admiring a dilapidated Snowgoose (35 or 37) in Swale Marina for the last 3 years, the hulls are in very good nick but the engine is a rusted lump and the woodwork is all rotten. About a year ago we plucked up the courage to ask the marina if they would enquire if it might be for sale. "Join the queue" was the response; apparently every 3 or 4 months someone asks if it's for sale; the owner isn't interested despite owning a depreciating asset that costs him a minimum of £150 a month to store. In the 3 years we've seen it it has cost him about £6000 and is worth a good £4000 less than it was 3 years ago. I guess pride stops him selling it, but it's costing.
 
There is (or possibly was now) a (formerly) very nice Princess 32 (mobo) with twin Penta diesels/legs sitting in a yard in Shepperton where the owner has had the hull bottom sand-blasted to within an inch of it's life. All the gel-coat has gone, voids have appeared in the layup, and it needs a layer of glass over the bottom plus gel-coat and so on to save it. The owner likewise has now probably expended thousands on storage fees but will not entertain selling it. It's also covered in green, dead leaves, plants growing etc. A real shame. It has to have reached the stage of decreptitude such that the storage fees per annum are greater than the value of the boat.
 
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