Abandoned yachts littering the USA

**arto** · 01-04-09, 21:27

...or so it says here. Is this happening in the UK yet?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/bu...oats.html?_r=1

**webcraft** · 01-04-09, 22:33

[ QUOTE ]
Marina and maritime officials around the country say they believe, however, that most of the abandoned vessels cluttering their waters are fully paid for. They are expensive-to-maintain toys that have lost their appeal.

[/ QUOTE ] Sorry, I don't quite get this. There are still plenty of people who will give you a few hundred quid for your unwanted yacht and save you being prosecuted for fly tipping.

I don't believe this article in any way reflects a trend, but if any of you do have a yacht between 33 and 44 feet that you can no longer afford and want to ditch please PM me before abandoning her.

- W

**photodog** · 01-04-09, 22:50

I am willing to take in any orphaned Oysters, I run the official
Nottingham Oyster Rescue home.

PM me in confidence if you need a loving home for any Oyster 55 that is suffering from behaviour problems, or that you can no longer afford to feed.

**FullCircle** · 01-04-09, 22:51

True, I have a low value 22ft boat on ebay that will go for a few hundred quid this week. Better that than pay another years storage with no hope of me getting round to restoring it.

**Wight Dawn** · 01-04-09, 23:03

Well it is not a new phenomenon. Abandoned boats have been a feature of our own landscape for many years. I am not saying that there were lots of them, but there have always been a few. I have chased after a few with odd results.

I remember Adam's yard breaking up an old 8-metre at a time I did not have a boat and being mad that they had done so. I played badminton with the yard manager and he told me that the owner had walked away and left a load of unpaid storage bills and that he considered the boat unseaworthy and unsaleable.

Another boat was at the boatyard in Port Glasgow. It looked abandoned but repairable, so I got the owners name and asked if he wanted to sell. He got very stroppy and told me to get lost, he planned to do the boat up the next year. It was later burned.

Then there was the one that kept sinking in Bowling basin. The head lock keeper told me that he had been given a telling off for pasing on the owner's name to one interested buyer. Again, the boat was a total loss in the end.

Looking around the yards today, I can see several that may well be abandoned. And they are costing their owners large sums of money in storage. Could we be about to see similar stories on this side of the Atlantic?

**out_to_sea** · 01-04-09, 23:04

I'll have any thing good going... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

**Ken_Irby** · 01-04-09, 23:57

who is too young to get a uk state pension; his retirement fund is mostly property; he has a boat; the boat is based in the eu med so his mooring costs have just gone up 40%; he spent most of his cash educating his children; his health is not all that good; he cannot sell his business because nobody has the money to buy it; if he does manage to sell, what income can he expect from his capital. these are bad, very bad times.
Kentrina

**webcraft** · 02-04-09, 09:44

[ QUOTE ]
these are bad, very bad times

[/ QUOTE ] Sorry to hear of your troubles - but why on earth would you abandon your boat rather than sell it - unless of of course you had negative equity in it and it was an insurance job.

- W

**Twister_Ken** · 02-04-09, 09:47

To sell successfully you need to find a buyer prepared to offer more than any outstanding finance debt and yard fees. In the US people are walking away from houses; why wouldn't they walk away from boats?