Man Sinks His Own Chris*Craft Cavalier

[SOUNDBOUNDER]

File this under the dumb criminal heading.

Seattle man accused of sinking his own yacht - CNN.com

Unbelievable!!!

[North253]

Idiot, thats why I sold mine for really cheap, well that and it didn't have a mast.

[retclt]

Insurance fires are probably going to get really popular in the new economy.

[Valiente]

That occurred to me as well. The first clue will be those people who bought a boat and only took it out three times a season. The "per-hour" costs of such a thing are phenomenal. I sail frequently compared to most, and I know I think sometimes about dividing the number of hours I spend actually sailing by the dollars per year that I pay, and it's only cheap fun if you go every nice day and a few not nice ones!

We actually use our boats as dockside accommodation, though, because it's cooler than the non-airconditioned house in July and August, so that adds "hours of use"...just not sailing hours.

But some boats at nice docks just accumulate dust and some days I think of the waste of money that some people seem to think is acceptable for having a two-hour cruise on a couple of long weekends followed by a dockside booze-up.

[SOUNDBOUNDER]

Soundings has this story about abandoned boats:

MULTIMEDIA - Abandoned boats are clogging waterways

[sailingdog]

The hole drilled in the bottom of the boat was a dead giveaway... What a mulroon. You can't really justify the amount of money you spend on a boat financially. If you have to start doing that, you're really better off selling the boat.

[painkiller]

I had an old stanker of a boat. Nothing on it worked. And I mean nothing. I used to wish that it would sink and that I could get the meager insurance money for it. When Hurricane Isabel came, I desperately wished the boat would sink. Nope, she was floating high and happy after the hurricane while boats all around her sank. I think she was even grinning at me when I checked on her. Then one day, I plugged the boat in to charge the batteries and went off to putter around the boat yard (one of my favorite hobbies). When I returned, I found the charger buzzing and smoking, trying desperately to catch the boat on fire. Opportunity you say? Nope. As it turns out, I'm just not a boat murderer. I still loved that old stanky hole in the water. I quickly unplugged her and made sure she didn't combust.

Then I sold her for peanuts to some old guy that wanted a project.

To this day, I won't permit any piece of gear from that boat (not even a fender!) onto my new boat. Call me superstitious.

[Faster]

Some years ago a guy was rescued in Haro Strait (erps or jrd22 may remember this) - he was on his Wauqiez Centurion 47 when it "sank from under him". From the get go his story was a bit confounding, but in an area of great depth and considerable current salvage was going to be difficult.

In the end, and with great persistence the insurance adjustor actually located the wreck, and after more than one attempt actually raised the vessel to find all seacock hoses slashed. The fellow was charged and fined, don't believe he served any time.

It's a great story that has been documented but I've been unable to google anything about it... it's a bit of a training video for the insurance industry.

btw much more was spent on the recovery than would have been spent on the claim, but I guess there was a point to make.

[SOUNDBOUNDER]

Like a lot of investigations (IRS, Insurance, Police,etc), there were probably red flags before they even looked at the boat.
The fact that the guy had the boat for sale, he had filed for bankruptcy in 2004, rowed ashore, and then he went to work after it sank, probably raised a few eyebrows somewhere.
Just like if a house burns and the owners are living somewhere else, and it is for sale.