longjohnsilver
Well-known member
How many times will insurance pay out on the same boat? 
Gaff schooner sunk in Brixham
- Thread starter Gary Fox
- Start date
dom
Well-known member
Gary Fox
N/A
Told you so!
trevbouy
Active member
It's not sunk again. It was left with water in it and standing on its keel leaning against the wall. Still is.
What you can see in its previous location is the town pontoon.
I was down there yesterday.
What you can see in its previous location is the town pontoon.
I was down there yesterday.
burgundyben
Well-known member
I'm still hopeful of more drama and excitement.
trevbouy
Active member
OK I went down to the harbour today to chat to the guys carrying out further repairs.
Originally the cause of the sinking at the town pontoon was the theft of the fenders. Without the fenders the boat cracked its side against the pontoon in a blow with a large swell. The repaired area can be seen in the photo as an area of light cement along the side away from the jetty.
The current cause of the sinking was just the same. Theft of the fenders. This caused just the same damage but on the side adjacent to the jetty.
Talking to Adam the asisstant harbour master, they are pumping out enough water to carry out repairs today. As I was chatting to the guys they were adding large ball fenders to the side against the jetty. When I asked how long they would last he replied 'time will tell but say 48 hours'
At the moment there is another reply to quote for its break up and removal awaited.
Unseen in pics is a guy down underneath the hull stood on the shingle carrying out patching.
Originally the cause of the sinking at the town pontoon was the theft of the fenders. Without the fenders the boat cracked its side against the pontoon in a blow with a large swell. The repaired area can be seen in the photo as an area of light cement along the side away from the jetty.
The current cause of the sinking was just the same. Theft of the fenders. This caused just the same damage but on the side adjacent to the jetty.
Talking to Adam the asisstant harbour master, they are pumping out enough water to carry out repairs today. As I was chatting to the guys they were adding large ball fenders to the side against the jetty. When I asked how long they would last he replied 'time will tell but say 48 hours'
At the moment there is another reply to quote for its break up and removal awaited.
Unseen in pics is a guy down underneath the hull stood on the shingle carrying out patching.
dgadee
Well-known member
A collector of fenders must be harassing the boating community. Better to put old tyres there, I think.
trevbouy
Active member
I couldn't comment but we were saying the fenders are just the same size as used on the fishing trawlers ?
penfold
Well-known member
They don't want to be sued by people who fall off the rotten, unusable pier; A&BC operate on a steadily applied policy of stopping doing anything on the grounds doing things costs money and might annoy someone, the theory presumably being that they'll end up with a nirvana of full coffers(trebles all round!), no elderly as they'll all have starved or frozen, no responsibilities as all capital assets will have rotted or fallen down, and an ecstatically happy population of zero as everyone will have moved to Dumbartonshire or Highland. This policy is working splendidly on the tenement at the junction of Sinclair st. and Clyde st. in Helensburgh, it's steadily falling apart and Clyde st is regularly shut because Storm XYZ has loosened some more rotten debris. Still, mustn't grumble. Perhaps they feel uncomfortable spending on piers after spooging millions on a breakwater and linkspan at Dunoon that's never seen a scheduled car ferry.
dgadee
Well-known member
Why does it take so long to go from Helensbourgh to Glasgow centre by train? It's only 30 miles. Over here - NI - everyone is moving out to the coast. Even Ballyhalbert (don't ask - just look at Google streetview) has seen loads of houses sold over the past few months I was told today by a local. Maybe when the yuppies (is that still a word?) move out to Helensburgh everything will improve. All change seems to be the keyword.
penfold
Well-known member
Helensburgh has plenty of yuppies; the train's only 40 minutes unless it breaks, although that's quite often and the operators policy of running 3 car trains at rushhour makes commuting about as attractive as root canal work.
Best idea; a few skips and a digger will have it out of the way soon enough.
Sailfree
Well-known member
Out of curiosity is it illegal if you drain all the contaminates out to sink a boat in deep international water?
penfold
Well-known member
It is now, MARPOL 5 changed to stop routine discharge of inert stuff like metal, ceramic, etc a few years ago, the only things still allowed are food waste and curiously dead bodies, presumably to allow burial at sea.
Stemar
Well-known member
So would that stop retired ships being sunk to create artificial reefs? It does seem to me that a concrete boat is made of much the same stuff as a coral reef, plus a bit of steel and, if steel is that much of a problem, we'd better start digging up all those WW2 wrecks in the Channel .
penfold
Well-known member
Those still happen, so presumably as long as you have an Artificial Reef Facilitation Act that allows licences for dumping you can do it provided you remove the obvious stuff like oily waste.
dgadee
Well-known member
Council Pays Cost of Scrapping Abandoned Fishing Trawler at Ballyhalbert
The council took the fishing boat over (it had been stripped and sold a couple of times while in the harbour) thinking they could just tow it out and sink it. How wrong they were. As they say, "a learning curve". Pity they didn't do some learning before they took it over.
Mark-1
Well-known member
Well not really. It needed to be disposed of, nobody else was going to do it. That's exactly what councils are there for.
dgadee
Well-known member
No. They bought it (or accepted it - not sure which) from the owner when they didn't need to. This then meant that they accepted responsibility for disposal when that could have been left with the owner. They thought they could get rid of it cheaply but were not allowed by the MCA who told them it was illegal to sink it. They then found that they couldn't break it up where it was, and had to take it elsewhere which led to even more expense. That is not "exactly what councils are there for." Especially when this particular council is skint.
The owner/s of the fishing boat must still be laughing their heads off.
Mark-1
Well-known member
I can't believe I'm getting into this argument but if the council found the disposal a bit spendy you can bet your life the owner wouldn't have been able to dispose of it. And Councils don't have a need for trawlers so you can bet they acquired it in order to dispose of it *because* nobody else was going to do so. And the term 'abandoned' strongly suggests there was no owner, or at least no owner able to get rid of it.
So it's pretty clear there was an abandoned boat the needed to be disposed of and the Council did it because that's what Councils are there for.
In fact they might have (quite rightly) had a statutory obligation to clear it up:
Fly-tipping: council responsibilities
Last edited:
dgadee
Well-known member
The harbourmaster told me all this - he was off work at the time and no-one asked him his view. The council knew who owned it so it was not 'fly berthing'. It cost the rate payer £36k. Show me the statutory requirement to take over fishing boats and spend council's money on it. I think they have better things to do with their money, frankly.
You started the argument, so you should believe that you got into it.