Abandoned Boats in Devon

[earlybird]

Came across this recently. Perhaps about time. Doesn't seem to have been picked up on the forum. Duchy of Cornwall steps in over rising tide of abandoned boats

 

[Boathook]

I can see more calls for boat registration coming in from harbour masters, etc to deal with this. How it is run would be easy linking it to the SSR that quite a few boats already have. How it is monitored / enforced would be something else plus how money is collected and paid for boat disposal.

 

[Sandy]

It is a problem in every backwater and boatyard in the world.

Finally, the RYA is doing something useful and getting an idea on how big the problem is

Report an abandoned End-of-Life Boat - The Green Blue

Perhaps one day they will take some action.

 

[Keith 66]

There have been several threads on the subject of end of life boats on her over the last few years. Every boatyard & Yacht Club has to deal with it. Every creek & river is full of similar boats.
Our club has an increasing problem with such boats. Recently an elderly owner turned up out of the blue & even though his elderly boat had been sunk for many years he has paid to have it disposed of properly. He is to be commended but unfortunately people like him who take responsibility for their junk are in a distinct minority!
Most just dont give a shit.

 

[oldbloke]

Although the Duchy owns the river bed and licences the moorings, there is no harbour authority as such and no official presence on the water hence the issue with abandoned boats of unknown ownership.

 

[Leighb]

I read the article in the Telegraph, and it seems that they are talking only about 6 specific boats on the Avon, it hardly constitutes a major programme to get rid of abandoned boats in the "West Country" as the title suggested.

 

[prestomg27]

There have been several threads on the subject of end of life boats on her over the last few years. Every boatyard & Yacht Club has to deal with it. Every creek & river is full of similar boats.
Our club has an increasing problem with such boats. Recently an elderly owner turned up out of the blue & even though his elderly boat had been sunk for many years he has paid to have it disposed of properly. He is to be commended but unfortunately people like him who take responsibility for their junk are in a distinct minority!
Most just dont give a shit.

I suspect it is usually more towards the elderly side of things. At the boatyard where I am refitting my boat it is full of old wrecks that will never see the water again. Most of them have storage being paid on them and where they haven't the boatyard manager goes through a long winded process of gaining ownership and selling or more usually breaking up with a JCB.
He says they have pretty much all got elderly owners.

One, a westerly griffon that wasn't too far gone he managed to sell for a couple of grand. The owner had died and the widow came down to see his boat that he had always told her was worth thousands. She was shocked when she realised she paid as much per year instorage as the boat was worth and her husband had had it there for about 20 years.

As he said, his boatyard was a field of dreams for residents in the local old peoples homes.