What to do with old wrecks

[burgundyben]

They have to pay a load of money per tonne of fibre glass to the recycler for a start and then I have no idea what old fibre glass is recycled into. Interesting question.

As far as I know there is little use for ground up grp. Its more likely landfill or an incinerator.

I was wonder if (as much as I want to see junk removed from river banks) actually there is an overall environmental benefit?

 

[jac]

Eh no, I think this my 36th year sailing and 25th of owning boats of various shapes and sizes kept in quite an array of locations. In all that time I've never heard of a skipper helping themselves to the contents or hardware from a seemingly abandoned vessel. By the time I would decide a vessel might be abandoned I doubt the batteries, cables, etc are in a useful state, and who wants rusty 1/2 tins of varnish and a can of 2 stroke oil thats so old the label has peeled off? Is this really how folk on the south coast behave? You scavenge the good bits but leave the hull as someone else's problem?

I think the issue is more around the boats last " honest" owner. the person who sells a near wreck but thinks it's worth saving but basically sells it to someone who wants to break for parts.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Re Derilict Boats ; near me on the River Exe at Cockwood , a few years ago a few boats were apparently abandoned , left sunk along the 'foreshore' , some locals and others used to strip these Boats of all and anything they could : Fittings , windows , keels , rigging , masts etc , leaving only the basc GRP hull mostly : they disaperared after time , I understand that the EXE Harbour Master was active in removing some of these , over time : THe taken /removed items I suppose found their way on to Boat Jumbles , FB Marketplace and EBay I guess , plus adorning 'takers' boats

Probablly the best way to minimise these abandoned boats

The long time abandoned Boats , often Trawlers and Fishing Boats , were usually of Timber construction , them often were left to rot away in their own good time >.

 

[Stemar]

The long time abandoned Boats , often Trawlers and Fishing Boats , were usually of Timber construction , them often were left to rot away in their own good time

At a guess, those boats seem likely to present a worse pollution hazard than an old GRP boat - TBT antifoul, topsides paint with lead, asbestos around exhausts and so on. Based on my experience, the currently (last 20 years) available copper based antifoul doesn't bother marine life in the least.

 

[fisherman]

We used to camp where the 'Tremayne Quay' wreck is, actually Cockle point half a mile up. About 2000 it was on its legs and used to have a sign on it saying 'please stop vandalising this boat'. This was one that the Gweek folk were looking to remove when they first started, just before Covid. I would be very happy to go up with some material and tools, maybe a 200lt drum or two and make it float. It is a largely inact 20ft GRP long keel hull. As we stood there recently I said to son, how about these cleats, might be useful? He said leave them for the guys that salvage it to recycle. I don't want to make it float and then have it drift away from the beach.

 

[fisherman]

Google reveals several researches into GRP recycling, mostly in concrete. I would have thought it could be a useful addition to road surfacing. The figure for disposal in the link is £400 a ton, so not so much for a 20ft hull after stripping out.

 

[fisherman]

There was a 45ft French FV on the beach opposite Frenchman's creek. We camped opposite, and would see the owner every Sunday, truck along the beach, climb aboard, then reappear with deckchair, beer and newspaper. (Working on the boat dear....).
We think he must have died about '99, because the boat was towed away up Ponsontuel Creek, just before Gweek, where it fairly quickly collapsed and there is hardly a trace now. I think water flows in, then the weight of it does the demolition work.
Wood boats are not such a problem, given any fuels etc remaining of course. In Camaret and other ports they make a point of keeping them.