Salvage parts

[roaringgirl]

I live aboard my boat, mostly at anchor. I'm in a remote atoll in the south Pacific, my windlass is broken. 100 yds away on the beach there's a wrecked boat that has been there since December. The hull and rig are ok, but it's a home-build and the inside is totally trashed, looted & half full of water.

The windlass on the foredeck has the parts I need to fix mine. The owner has apparently disappeared and the manager of the dive shop down the beach says his (unavailable) boss now owns it.

It is clearly never going to sail again. It's getting dark soon, would you...?

 

[coopec]

It would be pretty obvious who thumped it. He's probably got no legal right to search your boat.
Are you bigger than the him?

 

[CJ13]

In your situation it’s a no brainer - go for it!

 

[Roberto]

Give the manager of the dive shop a tip and ask him to close his eyes, buy his silence

We were once tied to a fishing pier, on the other side there were the remains of a sailboat which had been abandoned after having been caught in drug trafficking; the fishermen needed a piece of wire and they asked me if I had wire cutters, chip chop half the rigging was gone. I told them the few visible winches might have had some value and they asked for what possible reason :d

 

[Neeves]

I think it will be difficult to remove the parts, or the whole windlass ...... silently.

Jonathan

 

[coopec]

I think it will be difficult to remove the parts, or the whole windlass ...... silently.

Jonathan

How do you know that? (Maybe personal experience??)

 

[Neeves]

How do you know that? (Maybe personal experience??)

If the windlass has been sitting on the yacht on the beach and the yacht is full of water then corrosion will be rife. Usually when I help with windlass remediation I take an angle grinder as the stainless bolts are commonly badly corroded to an aluminium casting. If I were removing the windlass based on the 'location described', I would actually not bother trying to disassemble but simply cut the fibreglass, wood or steel. If its glass (a big jemmy) or steel - again I'd use an angle grinder - wood - not sure what would be best - probably a battery driven pruning saw.

Now if you have a silent angle grinder or know how to rip into fibreglass or wood silently - maybe we can set up as a team (and remove ATMs from malls) - please advise.

Jonathan

 

[R.Ems]

I would already have got what I needed. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Or mention it to anyone!

 

[ghostlymoron]

Ask yourself "do I own the boat" if the answer is no, you would be stealing not salvaging.

 

[Roberto]

Another possibility, sort of swap sometimes made with fellow cruisers when away from civilised world: if one has a spare you have an immediate need of, he gives it to you and you promise to buy the same and have it sent back to him back as soon as you can.
Under that sort of agreement I once gave two exceptionnally rare Perkins bolts to another cruiser we sympathised with (though I never received them back , but that does not matter).

 

[shortjohnsilver]

Look the property belongs to another. For you to take it and use it for your own use, would be to ‘permanently’ deprive the owner of it. Theft in a nutshell!

 

[Stemar]

Look the property belongs to another. For you to take it and use it for your own use, would be to ‘permanently’ deprive the owner of it. Theft in a nutshell!

Yes, but an honest belief that there is no owner(property has been abandoned), or that the owner would have given permission is a defence in England & Wales. Not sure I'd want to try that without a good lawyer - and a UK court, though.

I'd be inclined to negotiate with the dive shop manager as the owner's agent. (Yes, I know this is a recipe for getting ripped off, but what are the local prisons like?)

 

[shortjohnsilver]

If…..the dive shop manager can show that ‘they’ are the owner of the property and/or that the ‘actual’ owner has provided permission for the sale of parts property, then that would be fine, but if Roaringgirl takes it without such permission of the rightful owner, then it remains theft.
Yes, speak to the dive shop manager and elicit permission to take the property. Then the taking is done so with permission of its owner or agent that can authorise it.
You could take the property and convince yourself that you are taking the property into safekeeping, rather that leave it there and it being stolen anyway. But you would need to show clear intention that you had no intention of keeping it, ie permanently depriving its owner of it, such as fitting it, as to do would show an action and your intention to assume your own permanent ownership of it as if it was yours as if you had bought it, or, been given it.
If the dive shop manager says “take what you want or give me xxx for it” then he has assumed ownership and not you and the giving or sale is fine and no theft. ?

 

[pandos]

If the dive shop manager says “take what you want or give me xxx for it” then he has assumed ownership and not you and the giving or sale is fine and no theft. ?
[/QUOTE]
Unless there is a process in that part of the world where the State owns the wreck through a Receiver of Wrecks or the like, and the dive shop owner has no claim to it either ....I'd ask many more questions, and might even ask the local police to be sure....

 

[shortjohnsilver]

Yup Pandos is quite right. It may well be that the state have assumed ownership in these circumstances. This is certainly not as straight forward as we had first considered, caution is the by word.