[Rhodes22-list] News Item Re Economy and Boat Owners

[Brad Haslett]

Ben,

Look at the bright side, what a great time to be in the market for a
boat.  Airplane prices fell sharply about a year ago because of fuel
prices so I'm used to the whining from my other list.  Just as avgas
fell below 5 bucks a gallon, the stock and real estate markets crashed
so there's still no hope on the horizon.  The environmental damage
from sinking an abandoned boat is inexcusable. My brother "recycled" a
number of boats on the MS coast after Katrina.  There was a short
learning curve and the final solution is you pick them up with the
hydraulic thumb on our trackhoe and stuff them in a 20' waste
container.  About 70% falls apart in the container and the rest you
throw over the side.  I'm guessing the total time required for a 30
foot or so plastic boat is about 45 seconds.

Brad

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Ben Cittadino <bcittadino at dcs-law.com> wrote:
>
> Man THIS is depressing:
>
>
> "In bad economy, boat owners abandon their vessels
> November 13, 2008 3:28 PM EST
> SAN FRANCISCO - From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy,
> high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps
> thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up
> and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants.
>
> Boats have long been a barometer of consumer confidence, disposable income
> and the overall state of the economy. Now, marina and harbor officials are
> reporting a sudden increase in the past year in the number of deserted
> pleasure boats and working vessels.
>
> In Antioch, a town about 45 miles east of San Francisco, harbormaster John
> Cruger-Hansen showed up at his marina one day last spring to find the
> horizon changed overnight. On the San Joaquin River, he saw an old crane, a
> rusted barge, a tugboat and an assortment of other junked boats, all of
> which had been hauled in and left illegally.
>
> "Boating is a pure luxury and one of the first things to go when the economy
> turns south," said Cruger-Hansen, who expects to see more abandoned boats by
> year's end. "If it comes to the point of putting food on the table or paying
> the boat slip fee, it's the boat that goes."
>
> Unlike cars, wooden and fiberglass boats have virtually no scrap value. So
> rather than pay the high cost of hauling their boats to the dump, people
> ditch them or sell them for as little as $1 to anyone who will take them.
> The boats often break up and go under, or pass into the underground economy
> of nighttime scuttlers- who, for a fee, remove traceable identification
> numbers, strip out salvageable items and sink the vessels.
>
> "Oil, gasoline and sewage from these boat leaks into the aquatic
> environment," said Sejal Choksi, program director at San Francisco
> Baykeeper, an environmental organization. Boat paint often contains
> chromium, lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals, and as a vessel
> deteriorates, the coating flakes off and settles on the sea floor or river
> bottom, where fish swallow it, Choksi said.
>
> Government officials and environmental groups are calling for more programs
> and funding to prevent and clean up the junkyard flotillas.
>
> But removing just one sunken sailboat can cost upwards of $12,000, and
> taking away larger commercial vessels is even more expensive.
>
> With nearly a million registered boats, California - the second-largest
> boating state behind Florida - spends about $500,000 each year removing
> deserted recreational boats. The state has no money to remove commercial
> boats, and unless they are leaking oil or blocking a navigation channel, the
> Coast Guard is not required to take them away.
>
> "At the state and federal level something needs to be done with these
> derelict commercial vessels. They just sit there, falling apart," said
> Contra Costa County sheriff's Sgt. Doug Powell, who patrols the mouth of the
> San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Nearly 30 decaying tugboats, fishing
> boats, cranes and barges make up the aquatic junkyard in Powell's county.
>
> High fuel prices and several disastrous years in the nation's fishing
> industry have led fishermen to desert salmon boats in Washington state, crab
> boats in Maryland, trawlers in Oregon and lobster boats in Florida.
>
> In Georgia, Charles "Buck" Bennett, a natural-resources enforcement manager
> for the state, regularly finds wooden shrimp boats run aground and left to
> break apart in the Atlantic Ocean swells.
>
> "I'm not an economist, but when putting 500 gallons of fuel in a shrimp boat
> costs more than the boat is worth, that is a sad thing," Bennett said.
>
> Bennett keeps a growing list of broken down boats slated for removal,
> currently 152 statewide. But with lean economic times and a declining shrimp
> industry, he guesses there are hundreds more hidden along the state's
> shoreline and waterways.
>
> It's not just barnacle-laden junkers that are being abandoned.
>
> In recent months, an increasing number of powerboat and sailboat owners have
> been failing to pay their slip fees, according to Randy Short, chief
> executive of Almar Management Inc., a company with 16 luxury marinas in
> California and Hawaii.
>
> When the payments are 40 days delinquent, the marina chains the boat to the
> dock. Recently, a boat owner in one of Short's Southern California marinas
> disappeared, leaving behind a $200,000 boat and no contact information.
>
> "People get financially upside-down and ditch their boats," Short said, "and
> you can just forget trying to sell a power boat right now. No one is
> buying."
>
> Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
> --
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