Abandoned boats on the rise

Concerto

Concerto

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It seems abandoned boats is getting worse. With glassfibre boats getting older and with people getting squeezed financially, many are being left for others to pay for their disposal. There are several potential solutions being looked at, with registration coming near the top of the list (I hope not). Alternatively a couple of hundred pounds added to the contract of new boats to ease the cost of destroying some abandoned boats. What do you think?

In Focus: Abandoned boats on the rise – who is paying the price? - Marine Industry News
 
I dare say it happens; as likely they will be abandoned because they have no economic value, just as EOL wooden boats were/are.
 
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I read a report a good few years ago now that in Japan they put them through a wood chipper of sorts and turned into road surfacing, or was that a dream?
 
I sail around the more remote parts of NW Scotland. Landing even the most remote location, I find abandoned boats, some of the boats are deliberately abandoned with all the valuable stuff removed. Others are carefully moored and covered, as if the owner intended to return, but for one reason or another never make it back.
The wooden ones, rot into the surrounding over time.
The GRP and inflatable ones don't really rot, they simply get subsumed into the undergrowth, to become archaeology treasure of the future.
The problem comes when there are simply too many boats, taking up valuable space, that yards or councils could make money on. If the owner can no longer be traced and some organisation wants the space to turn a profit on the space, then they should be able to take possession and either sell on, or organise refurbishment, or scrap.
 
Ian_Edwards said:
If the owner can no longer be traced and some organisation wants the space to turn a profit on the space, then they should be able to take possession and either sell on, or organise refurbishment, or scrap.
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The issue with that though is the cost v value of boat. Few will probably abandon a £10k+ value boat deliberately but after 2-3 years it will be worth far less than that. Most likely it will be the "Sell on ebay for a few hundred" , someone strips the valuables and one i then left with an empty hull that will cost to dispose of.

My own suggestion would be a very small levy on new boats 0.5%? - together with a small charge through harbour dues. TO make that work though, there needs to be a much clearer, cheaper and simpler way for boatyards, councils, harbour authorities etc to tale possession at no risk and to scrap or resell. My own preference would be to focus on scrap / recycle with a proviso that any historic / classic / unique examples could be passed to recognised bodies to restore. We don't want to encourage more talentless dreamers to take on uneconomic wrecks and just perpetuate the issue. let them take on the near abandoned boats that just need some TLC.
 
We have the same problem here on the Fal. It costs the harbour office a small fortune - £1500 or more - to get rid of one boat on their foreshore. Money that comes out of Cornwall Council coffers. A big chunk of it is the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. They buy something of a heap for a few hundred quid, or maybe a couple of grand, use it a bit, then it needs work so it just gets abandoned on somebody else's foreshore well away from their home. Our village playing fields owns foreshore - I'm on the committee - and we have a number of such boats. Now look at policing it a bit better and raising a little income too.
I personally own about 300m of foreshore on Mylor Creek where we allow locals to keep boats for free. Most are really good but you always get the odd oaf. A few years back a couple of the nice boat owners did a foreshore cleanup for us. A father and son chopped up several abandoned boats - wood and GRP - and made a bonfire. I'm sure that it's not how one should do it but we didn't ask too many questions and they did a great job.
 
Burning grp wrecks reduces the plastic pollution impact.

I know grp can be ground up to make road surfaces but that just defers that issue and also raises the problem of traffic generating micro glass dust as much urban dust pollution is road surface not vehicle fumes
 
There was an "abandoned boat" at Rutland last year, where the owner hadn't paid their dues. It was put up for auction and got a bid of £9k. Miraculously, the owner immediately paid his dues to stop the sale. It is still sat there going greener by the day though.
 
Bobc said:
There was an "abandoned boat" at Rutland last year, where the owner hadn't paid their dues. It was put up for auction and got a bid of £9k. Miraculously, the owner immediately paid his dues to stop the sale. It is still sat there going greener by the day though.
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One of the clubs I am a member of have different rates for boats in their yard depending on the work done on the boat or no work done.

The latter being considered as storage and has a higher rate than boat work making progress to complete.
 
I suspect that the way round it is to charge a £1 per boat on a mooring or maybe a few more £'s. The majority of boats are I believe on maintained moorings so the 'yard' collects the money. It then comes down to who looks after the money and the criteria used for using it to clear up 'abandoned boats'.
The other option which I like even less is compulsory registration which will then lead to licenses of competence, etc.
The problem isn't going to go away and only get worse as GRP boats become uneconomic to repair or maintain.
 
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