Dufour 2800" Lazy Dream" in Langstone Harbour

[ripvan1]

SSR 111565 - does anyone know owner of this boat - please PM me if you do or advise him to contact harbour master ASAP

Thanks

 

[winsbury]

harbour master should know who he is or have access to SSR records to find out so probably best to let them know whatever it is you know:
Tel: (023) 9246 3419
email: admin@langstoneharbour.org.uk

 

[ripvan1]

harbour master can't contact owner, boat's on the shore, needs to be moved pronto before damage occurs or toerags get on it and it gets neaped for a foqtnight

 

[Stork_III]

From ITU Mars , owners name is Moloney.

 

[ripvan1]

Sorted - owner was abroad but a friend of his and harbour master have managed to move the boat to safe water.

Begs the question tho' that if an owner cannot be contacted and boat is in danger of being severely damaged or looted should HM be able to move it without consent

 

[bitbaltic]

Begs the question tho' that if an owner cannot be contacted and boat is in danger of being severely damaged or looted should HM be able to move it without consent

Every marina manager can do just that at their discretion never mind the circumstances. Be very surprised if harbourmasters could not.

 

[VicMallows]

Surely a Harbour Master can move ANY boat within his harbour at his own discretion? I would sincerely hope that mine (Chichester) would do so in such a situation.

 

[ripvan1]

Surely a Harbour Master can move ANY boat within his harbour at his own discretion? I would sincerely hope that mine (Chichester) would do so in such a situation.

My exact thoughts - but that was their reply (twice) when contacted - and only after 2 days on the rocks was it moved.

 

[Thistle]

Sorted - owner was abroad but a friend of his and harbour master have managed to move the boat to safe water.

Begs the question tho' that if an owner cannot be contacted and boat is in danger of being severely damaged or looted should HM be able to move it without consent

Glad it's now safe. I doubt if the HM can move it with impunity: his employers would want to avoid any claim for damage caused and, in the case of a big vessel he may not be able to move it. I'm sure, however, that he can *insist* on the owner arranging to move it. If the owner then asks the HM to help that is a different matter.

 

[Spyro]

If it's on the rocks surely anyone can move it, then it would become salvage, whether you would claim it or not is another matter.

 

[winsbury]

Mostly mud in Langstone, to hit a rock would be doubly unlucky.

Seriously though I would have thought the HM had a duty to make fast any craft adrift and charge the owner accordingly.

 

[prv]

Begs the question tho' that if an owner cannot be contacted and boat is in danger of being severely damaged or looted should HM be able to move it without consent

Surely anyone can - and should, if they're able to do so. That's what the law of salvage is all about.

Pete

 

[winsbury]

Surely anyone can - and should, if they're able to do so. That's what the law of salvage is all about.

Pete

okay so now I'm worried ... lets say my boat sits on a swinging mooring in a harbour for which I pay fees, the agreement with the HM is that they will check on the vessel and report probems if spotted and the agreement specifically states the HM is responsible for the maintenance of the mooring and will replace at the owners cost any mooring ropes to the vessel in the event they become unservicable and the owner cant be contacted. This is the situation as I understand it on most swinging moorings unless self-installed and what no doubt is the case with the boat Dufour in this thread.

So, a storm or other natural event causes the mooring to fail and the boat is subsequently grounded just a few yards away while still inside the port/river/harbour. The next high tide it is a simple task of refloating and re-mooring to an available location.

Is the law of salvage stating that the salvor, assuming it wasnt the HM, would have the right to claim the boat or payment equivalent to its then value even though a pre-existing duty of care exists with the contracted HM authority ? If so this is a mighty compelling reason to monitor the mooring much more closely almost daily. Even more worrying is that this is an even more compelling reason for the unscupulous to 'make' a mooring fail and then claim salvage rights.

Surely this cant be right ?

 

[l'escargot]

If the HM doesn't have sufficient resources to move it himself then he is going to have to employ commercial help. They will want to know who is going to foot the bill - the HM certainly won't be in a position to say he will.

 

[ripvan1]

I thought salvage concerned vessels at sea or in danger of going aground ?

A lot of Langstone harbour was infilled in the '50s and 60's and although there IS a lot of mud there, around the edges there are many large rocks and even larger lumps of concrete reinforcing the shore wall.

The boat in question was very lucky to have "landed" on the small stuff, especially with the northerly/easterly winds we were experiencing earlier in the week - also lucky the tides weren't any higher.

All in all a lucky outcome.

With regard to the HM he had the resources to pull the boat off as was evidenced 2 days after the grounding. I think we'll see similar incidents in the future as the H/board has recently had it's budget slashed so I assume maintenance of moorings will be a casualty.

Please excuse my lousy photediting

 

[oldharry]

I think they can, Vic, I watched a year ago as the Patrol Rib tried to retrieve a smallish yacht that had broken free and gone on the rock berm opposite Prinstead.

I would expect though that HMs would be reluctant to recover a stranded boat not in immediate danger without the owners agreement. Apart from anything else, it costs time and money.

 

[ripvan1]

Apart from anything else, it costs time and money.

Tough - it's part of their raison d'etre

 

[prv]

Is the law of salvage stating that the salvor, assuming it wasnt the HM, would have the right to claim the boat or payment equivalent to its then value even though a pre-existing duty of care exists with the contracted HM authority ?

Note that if someone is awarded salvage, they don't automatically get the value of the boat. They get an amount decided by a special tribunal (would it still be an Admiralty Court?) based on how much risk they took in doing the work, and how much effort it required. A simple job, towing a drifting boat onto a nearby vacant mooring, might not get much at all. Your insurance ought to cover such an award anyway - after all, if the boat wasn't salvaged, they'd be paying for a total loss instead.

I can't see how the fact that you had a contract with someone else to look after your boat makes any difference to the salvage award. At best you'd have a claim against that other person for not doing their job properly. But you'd have to prove they didn't, which in the case of a harbour master with hundreds of boats to keep an eye on, might be difficult.

Pete

 

[Tranona]

Insurance policies usually have salvage explicitly covered. One of the reasons why most mooring owners require a boat to be insured while on the mooring. Can understand the unwillingness of the HM to intervene if the vessel is not a danger to others without making efforts to contact the owner whose responsibility it is to move it. Can't see that the HM has any responsibility to the owner unless the stranding is a result of failure of their mooring.

 

[greenalien]

If a vessel has broken its mooring and run aground, who's to say it hasn't been damaged - especially the downward side, which would be very difficult to inspect? Without a survey, if you made the decision to tow it off, without consulting the owner, and it then sunk, who would be to blame?