Seems that except for a boat that suddenly develops a problem that a owner who allows their boat to get to the stated conditions is already at the point of not caring.

 

Officials expect that this new law will decrease the number of vessels becoming derelict, a problem which continues to burden the state's public waterways.

This part I found interesting.

Like Don said, an owner probably stopped caring.

But I wonder what kind of fines there would be. If an owner can't or won't pay to fix their boat, then fines are just going to take more money out of their pockets to afford certain repairs.

But, I can see it as a good thing for Florida to try getting boats fixed, moved, or removed/destroyed. It'll be interesting to see the results of its enforcement.

 

This could be a good thing, if properly enforced.

 

I think you missed perhaps the most important part of this law...

"To prevent vessels in neglected or deteriorating condition from reaching a likely and foreseeable state of disrepair, a vessel that is at risk of becoming derelict pursuant to subsection (2) may not anchor on, moor on, or occupy the waters of this state."

 

But what difference does that made, the boat is already in the waters.

 

Many years ago, I wrote an article for Ira Black's Noreaster Magazine about derelict boats, and from the research done in putting the article together I discovered that Maryland alone had 10,000 derelicts at that time. During the past winter, there was a small sailboat attached to a self installed mooring buoy in the lower Susquehanna River just above the US 40 Bridge. The winter's ice dragged the boat onto the rocks of the river's eastern shore, which it still sits today, abandoned.

Two months ago, a 27-foot, offshore fishing boat, complete with outriggers, tuna flying bridge, big outboard engine, was run aground and anchored just south of Havre de Grace. Someone ground off the numbers and the boat is sitting in just a foot of water, I suspect until next winter's ice floes drag it down the bay where it will either become a navigation hazard or sink.

Another, 45-foot powerboat/cruiser was anchored in the lower Susquehanna River, good looking boat, sitting in 25 feet of water off Garrett Island. It took about 6 months for it to fill with rainwater and snow before it sank out of sight. A 25-foot sailboat was tied to one of the cruiser's cleats, it broke loose, drifted downriver to the railroad bridge, where it lodged against the bridge for about a week before authorities towed it to the city marina at Perryville. It sat there for three months, then was towed away to be scrapped at taxpayer expense.

Two years ago, a beautiful, 40-foot ketch was anchored in front of Log Pond Marina in Havre de Grace with a 12-foot inflatable dinghy attached. The dinghy had a Mercury 25 HP engine and was in perfect condition. A few days later, that same boat and dinghy were against the marina's bulkhead, the boat was leaning to starboard and appeared to be slowly sinking. No one attempted to rescue the boat and it went to the bottom a week later, however, the dinghy was still attached and floating. Six months later, the dinghy sunk. That boat is still there, sitting on the bottom in 12 feet of water.

Unfortunately, we live in a disposable world, a world where nothing seems to have any value. Homes are neglected and abandoned, yachts are neglected and abandoned, cars and trucks are often in the same category, and to a great extent, so are people. it's a sad state of affairs, and we are paying the price.

Gary

 

It makes me wonder how many of these items are forgotten due to loss of the owner. Someone who is a loner with no direct family who dies with no one to take ownership of the boat, or someone who has family thousands of miles away who either don't know of the boat or don't think it needs to be checked on. If it was a car or a house that everyone is familiar with I'm sure people in the will would move in, sell it, or scrap it pretty quick. A 25' boat may be more of a hassle to inheritants who live far away than anything so they pretend it doesn't exist.

The inheritants who hired Captain Ron knew what to do about it! :sailing-pilgrims:

 

Last autumn/winter I cruised from Deale MD to Knoxville TN via the ICW. Seen the derelict problem first hand. Mast sticking up just south of Hell's gate, a fleet of derelicts in and around Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and many many other cities. It is sad. Would I be willing to pay a few extra dollars per year to fund a derelict removal fund? One way or the other we pay to remove them. We responsible boaters also get a bad rap from this. Anchoring restrictions now are an attempt to solve it.
Anyway enough of the rant. Hopefully this law will help but I can see it being abused "The vessel has broken loose or is in danger of breaking loose from its anchor." Heck, aren't all anchored boats in danger of breaking loose or dragging? Kinda like the unintended consequences of civil forfeiture laws enacted to combat the drug problem.

 

While fraught with the potential for over-zealous enforcement, this sort of law is over due.

It's a shame statutes like this weren't in place sooner, and then there might not have been the push for the anchoring laws we now see.

 

Wont be easy to abuse this law when the first step required of leo is to issue a citation...basically a warning...that gives the owner 30 days to fix the issue

 

When not crossing oceans we live in a condo overlooking the Coconut Grove/Dinner Key mooring field. Today there are about 60 liveaboard boats not in the 'official' mooring fields. I can see one sunken boat and two aground on the spoil islands. The City pays over $5,000 to remove a sunken/aground boat. Over the years I have seen a derelict boat sink or go aground every 2 months.

If the new law is enforced it might help but when I ran the on-water support for the Red Cross after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma I discovered that many of the derelict boats were occupied by good people, often VETS, who were 'down-on-their-luck'. Many of the boats I delivered MRE's to were incapable of moving and only survived the hurricanes by good luck...50 of the boats sunk/went ashore in the hurricanes and two occupants died the night of Katrina.

This might just be another example of 'people-with-money' moving the near homeless to locations that do not spoil their view.

The problem is not as simple as many would assume!

Phil

 

When not crossing oceans we live in a condo overlooking the Coconut Grove/Dinner Key mooring field. Today there are about 60 liveaboard boats not in the 'official' mooring fields. I can see one sunken boat and two aground on the spoil islands. The City pays over $5,000 to remove a sunken/aground boat. Over the years I have seen a derelict boat sink or go aground every 2 months.

If the new law is enforced it might help but when I ran the on-water support for the Red Cross after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma I discovered that many of the derelict boats were occupied by good people, often VETS, who were 'down-on-their-luck'. Many of the boats I delivered MRE's to were incapable of moving an only survived the hurricanes by good luck...50 of the boats sunk/went ashore in the hurricanes and two occupants died the night of Katrina.

This might just be another example of 'people-with-money' moving the near homeless to locations that do not spoil their view.

The problem is not as simple as many would assume!

Phil

Good post Phil these things seldom are. These"derelict fields" are on the rise, more in FL than here in Va. but some of our local Marinas are turning into the same thing. Im not seeing any other clean up measures but if the slip is being paid (I suppose they are) then the property has to be sold or repurposed to put this to light. I suppose anything the localities do to head this off is well founded. Your storm services are Valiant, thanks for your efforts.

 

During my research for the article, I discovered that many, but not all, of these boats became derelicts when someone either passed away, or had to move out of the area because their jobs took them to distant locations. In the cases where someone died, the folks that inherited the boat just didn't want them, especially sailboats. Thus, the boats were just left in the marinas or moorings until the marina owner got rid of them in some manner. I know for certain my children do not want my Morgan or the expenses to maintain it.

Gary

 

Hmm, makes you think about putting a provision in your will to donate the boat...

 

Under the new law, a vessel is deemed to be "at-risk" if any of the following conditions is observed:
is listing due to water intrusion
Gary :2 boat:

So, if I empty one water tank and develop a list I could get a citation? After all, how are they to know why I'm listing?

While fraught with the potential for over-zealous enforcement, this sort of law is over due.

IMO it's just more of the same from a state that wants only vessels owned by the 1% in their waters.

 

i can see where this is going... i feel for the folks who cannot afford any more...
any more repairs
any more tickets
any more fines
any more fees
ány more rent


no one addresses the real issue-- where are you going to place the inhabitants of these boats once their homes are removed from their possession, filled with all their personal belongings and paperwork. they are not allowed into the boat without proof of ownership, which is inside the boat., watched as this happened in san diego--
remember, florida isnot the first with this.

 

Anyone that has been into Estero Bay has seen the numerous boats anchored there, that are not maintained, and many of which are uninhabited. Too many of these boats chafe through their anchor lines and end up sideways in the mangroves, or hitting and damaging a properly anchored boat.

Personally, I would like to see the state DEM patrol the bay at dusk and/or dawn, and approach any anchored boat that is outside the designated anchorage that does not have an illuminated anchor light. At the very least the DEM should provide a warning to the owner of record, and copy down the HIN. At the officer's discretion, they could cite (fine) the owner. If the owner is being a pain, the DEM could complete an MSD and Vessel Safety Check (which includes verifying the HIN) and write more citations. In the US, the coast guard, and I believe the DEM, have the right to inspect ANY vessel that is in the water. Back at the office, the DEM would start checking HINs against owners, and state tax records. If there are discrepancies in the records, the boat should get another visit.

The fines alone would fund the extra hours to enforce this policy. After a month of this policy, I would bet that 3/4 of the vessels that are currently anchored back in Estero Bay would be gone.

Weeks later, when a boat floats free, and the HIN is mysteriously obliterated, the DEM would have a record of the boat and the HIN, and have a leg up on tracing the RESPONSIBLE person (or LLC) and hold them accountable.

The rules would be simple; if you don't want to be harassed, then keep you boat in working order.

I am NOT a fan of the no anchoring laws. You buy a home near the water, you are going to see boats. Deal with it! If you don't like boats, don't buy waterfront property. However, the boat owners have a responsibility to maintain their vessel, and to deal with the reprucussions if they do not. I cannot abide allowing the navigable waterways to be polluted with derelict vessels, and to allow those that should be held responsible get away with it.

 

The fines alone would fund the extra hours to enforce this policy.

If these folks don't have the bread to maintain their boats to even a minimum safety level, what makes you think they will pay any fines?
Nope, there's not going to be any money to reimburse the taxpayer for the time or expenses of the water LEO's.
Fining and evicting folks because their home (boat) is unsightly and MAY cause a problem sometime in the future doesn't sound too much like an America I'd wish to be a citizen of.
Perhaps a cheaper and more compassionate approach might be to just give those who need it a proper mooring or anchor tackle and a bit of help making their homes (boats) a safe place to live? Or we could just add them to the countless thousands of homeless already on our streets and under overpasses.

 

Part of the problem with derelict boats in Florida playing (or being) dumb.
Their DMV plays the same game with uninsured motorists, they claim it is technologically impossible to keep track of which owners (of registered cars) are or aren't currently insured.

Well, places like NY solved that problem over 20 years ago. You drop, cancel, fail to renew, in any way bungle your insurance and on the next day, your insurer sends you a letter, and sends a list of all "now uninsured" to the state DMV. And the DMV passes the info to the various agencies, who give it to the tow trucks, and if your car is spotted, it gets impounded. Period.

But apparently that old mature technology won't work in Florida, apparently computers, databases, and the USPS can't function down there. Maybe its the heat and humidity.

Boats? Yeah. At some point they are all put into the registration or documentation database, complete with HIN, make, and model. Sure, some sail over the border, no system is perfect. Most are probably acquired locally.

So you find a derelict P35 with the HINs all ground off. Again, BFD. There were only 500 ever built. (And that's a BIG production run compared to most.) You take your own state registration list, and you pay for the other 49 state lists, and you look at the USCG documentation list. Guess what? That's a fast dumb database query that will tell you which boats ARE still registered and current, and WHICH boats have fallen off the lists. Odds are only a half dozen are no longer actively registered (ignoring the ones that were totaled) and then it becomes a simple exercise of knocking on a half dozen doors and saying "Show us where your boat went."

It won't locate the owner every time, but it sure as **** will turn up the majority of those "Gee, my boat was parked right here..." folks.

But Florida? Won't even try, it is easier to ***** and moan and blame it on all those rich boaters, ruining things for the blessed few. Sure.

Florida? Hell, they ain't even learned how to drain a swamp down there, and most folks knew how to do that a hundred years ago.

 

...And the DMV passes the info to the various agencies, who give it to the tow trucks, and if your car is spotted, it gets impounded. Period.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken

It's not illegal for an uninsured driver to own a car. It's only illegal for them to drive it. They can lend it to an insured driver, and that person can drive it legally. Towing the car helps nobody.

Uninsured drivers also borrow cars and drive them illegally. How do you know that the driver is insured when you see a car driving down the road?

Things could be better handled. Maybe tracking cars whose owners' insurance has lapsed would help, or maybe it would create another fee-generation system where ticketed owners then would be less able to pay for insurance. In either case the solution you proposed is a mess.

The entire rest of the post reads the same way. Every problem is simple if you can discard all the nuance and have everyone do it your way. That doesn't work in the real world.

 

How about making it easier to obtain a salvage title for an abandoned boat? It might make something that is an expense an asset. Probably hundreds if not thousands of folks who are wanna be sailors but cannot afford a new boat happy.....

 

Now that sounds like a good idea. Couple that with easier registration in general. Florida makes it next to impossible to complete title transfers where the previous owner has moved out of state and no longer possesses the paper title. They either have to pay a duplicate title fee or appear in person.

There's also a nasty loophole where small boats which only need a title if they are equipped with a motor can be sold several times with out an engine, but require the last motor-posessing owner's permission to retitle if a later owner decides to add an motor again.

I've had a Broward County tax collector tell me that she's never seen anyone fired for failing to issue a title, only for issuing one improperly. Maybe provisional titles could help.

 

The whole title thing is a sword that cuts both ways. Yes, for derelict boats it would be nice if it were easier to acquire legal title without having to find the previous owner. On the other hand, If I anchor my boat in Boot Key Harbor and go home to Tampa for a month (which, due to some unforeseen circumstance turns into two months), I certainly don't want to come back to find that someone has taken it, and Monroe County has issued them a legal title for it! So it is a matter of balancing the rights of the current/previous owner against those who want to take possession of it. It should be easier, but not TOO easy!

 

In just about every instance of abandonment I looked at researching my Noreaster article, I found the vast majority of truly abandoned boats had obvious signs of intentional abandonment. Most had ground off any identifying numbers on the boat so it could not be traced to the owner. This was the case with the last four I've personally seen in the Susquehanna River Basin.

The owners of those abandoned in boat yards and marinas usually had significant health problems, or had passed away and there's was the only name on the title. In this instance, the owner of the boat yard or marina had to place a storage lien on the boat, then file this lien with the Boating Administration of their respective state, send a registered letter to the owner(s), wait 60 days, then post two notices in local newspapers stating that the boat will be auctioned off or confiscated by the facility for lack of payment for storage fees. The same thing is done for individuals that abandon their property in storage lockers, and unclaimed freight at shipping terminals. The process is quite time consuming. Additionally, if the boat is a true junker, one that is not fit for restoration, and there are lot of these around, the marina or boat yard owner then has to shell out some heavy bucks to get rid of the boat. You can't just tow it to a landfill and dump it into a big hole. There is a huge amount of expensive preparation that must take place in order to junk the vessel.

My kids do not want my sailboat - plain and simple. So, in the event I drop dead before my loving spouse, she will have to sell it for whatever she can get, which in this market, will probably not be enough to pay for my funeral expenses.

I believe Florida had the best plan with it's artificial reef program, one that has long since been canceled due to lack of funds.

F-106 drone airplane donated by Tyndall Force Base.
Several gray snappers (Lutjanus griseus) taking advantage of the habitat provided by an F-106 drone airplane donated by Tyndall Force Base and deployed off Panama City on 9/25/95. The reef site is Bay County's Large Area Site A and the reef was less than two years old when FWC diver Tom Maher took the photo 5/6/97. There are three of these planes at this site in 112 feet of water off PC.

All the best,

Gary

 

Unfortunately, incidents like this are what drove my earlier post in this thread;
One man hospitalized after Fort Myers Beach boat explosion

The Coast Guard rescued a 70-year-old man early Friday after a sailboat explosion on Fort Myers Beach.

The explosion was reported at about 2 a.m. The sailboat came free from its mooring and caught another sailboat on fire in the Back Bay mooring field behind Salty Sam's Restaurant.

A boat crew from Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard station arrived on the scene and rescued the 70-year-old man. He suffered minor burns and was transported to HealthPark Medical Center.

A crew from Fort Myers, Lee County Fire and Rescue, and Cape Coral Fire and Rescue isolated both sailboats and extinguished the fires.

If you look at the photos, you can see that "GloFish" is sporting an entire forest of undergrowth, and has not moved in months. The other vessel appears to have burned to the waterline. Both of these vessels are now hazards to navigation, and have caused the SeaRay owning public to cast a wary eye toward sailboats.

 

and have caused the SeaRay owning public to cast a wary eye toward sailboats.

I get your drift, but there are probably just as many derelict powerboats in Florida as there are sailboats. For some reason this is mainly a problem in Florida and not elsewhere. In reality, most of the derelict boats are owned by locals who just want a cheap place to store their "project" that never gets completed. Yes, there are some boats being lived aboard that gradually decline until they are hazards, but in every case there are existing laws to take care of them--it's just that nobody does. Florida's biggest problem is they have numerous law enforcement agencies with vastly overlapping responsibilities that want to own go-fast powerboats so they can get out on the water and do something glamorous and fun. They want to be chasing down drug smugglers and not towing abandoned boats. Compare the situation to the typical New England town where there is a harbormaster in charge of the water, and he has a workboat that doubles as a pumpout boat, probably doesn't carry a gun, and is a professional seaman with eons of experience on the water. He can spot a true problem vessel from a mile away and knows what to do with it. In Florida you have the local police boat, the state police boat, the county police boat, the FWC, etc. etc. who all have go-fast boats with twin 300-hp outboards on the stern, armed to the teeth, and gung-ho to do something, anything to provide a justification for being on the water. Most of these guys are law-enforcement first, boating last types. They are looking for "crime" and don't want to deal with a dirty old boat that is sinking. So they don't. That's why there is a problem.

 

By the way, this new law is modeled almost entirely on the exact same set of criteria the Florida FWC has used for many years to remove abandoned boats. The previous regulations worked exactly the same way, but now I suppose any old law enforcement agency can use them, and not just the FWC.

 

such judgementalism.
has any of ye ever seen a cruising sailboat arrive from a particularly bad canal transit?? with a quarter of the rub rail and hull to deck connection worn off to make a hole in boat?? i have.
so fla is gonna say these good folks from another country who had a fouled to hell passage is a derelict??
get real folks. judge not lest thee be judged. you all make florida a not to cruise location en toto.
not that it makes much difference on economy of fla, as cruising boats have been proven not to contribute into economies they disapprove of.
like florida.
like san diego , which did this before fla did...
only thing these laws do is stuff the books with unenforceable ****.
remove the wrong boat from possession of wrong disabled soul and have a supreme court doj incident. doj takes care of ada, aka disabled souls and their rights. go for it, fla-- see who comes to visit.
and just because there is undergrowth on a hull doesnt mean you should diss him or her for being there.
i laugh at the ignorance involved.
instead of assisting with a clean up and helping the disabled with their boats you all diss em, and ye diss em hard.
you are part of the problem.
a very large part of it.
hhas any of ye done anything at all to help the owners of these allegedly derelict abandoned boats or merely leave it up to the bureaucratic organizations created on your tax dollars to deal with the **** you cannot stand????
or merely mouthed off about it???
by leaving it up to a bureaucratic organization to deal with this issue, you have allowed the govt to declare even your boat as derelict at its own convenience,. good work, folks.

 

Zeehag, in reality almost never are truly derelict boats towed away, because as I stated none of the law enforcement agencies wants anything to do with them and it is very easy for each one to say "that's their problem, not mine." In the very few cases something is actually done the boats tend to be really, really, derelict. Think waterlines going down, mooring lines frayed and in knots, bilge pumps long-since dead, etc. Usually, the owner is nowhere to be found and nobody is onboard. If you are there, obviously working to improve things, and reasonably in compliance with things like registration, holding tanks, and safety gear law enforcement will simply move on if they bother to visit you in the first place. The law is simply to satisfy the need for there to be a legal definition to cover the butt of law enforcement when they have to do something. It is like a loitering law--almost never enforced, but there in case law enforcement feels the need to chase someone away from someplace. Despite all the negative sounding stuff about Florida it is a fun place to visit by boat and chances are slim you will ever have a problem with law enforcement.

 

correct--per history, the towed boats belong to disabled vets and current active cruisers.
the development of these regulations and the enforcement thereof gives govt much too much control over appearances not to reality or necessity. the couple who had the audacity to arrive in sd bay after the ruling against anchoring yet before the need for permits in the cruisers anchorage, were mercilessly harrassed to point of not being able to leave boat for fear of loss due to harbies towing. this was back in the day when the harbies(sdhpd) selectively towed. they had been in the bay less than one month.
the truly derelict were sunk in anchorage 8, in south bay, where only locals knew the safe places to put down hook. not a place for a lady to live. OR they were moved around with outboard engines on transoms so they could be rented out by an unscrupulous scumbag as super low rent housing, if they remained afloat longer than a week. was quite an entertaining era.
i loved my year in west fla. is awesome place. but your new laws give way too much control to the govt agencies . they donot tag the boats but the individuals in residence. profiling is the basis for this -- of humans as well as boats. "oh i dont want them in my neighborhood." let the govt take care of it.
wow.
isnt the scenery , it is the mindset of the inhabitants. we had many awesome encounters in west fla--i have no desire to even visit east fla. never have.

 

Zee,

I don't believe that anyone said that because a hull was fouled was a derelect boat. I know that I didn't. What I did say is that judging by the undergrowth on the hull of GloFish, she obviously hadn't moved in months.

However, my read of the news item is that the other boat (the one that exploded, drifted and burnt to the waterline) was derelect, and because this "Norwegian Funeral" ran into GloFish; a 70 year old male has been treated for burns at a local hospital, he may now be homeless (I don't know his personal situation), and now both boats are now hazards to navigation. This could have been avoided if the owner of the other boat had been responsible, and maintained his/her vessel and all the equipment aboard.

Owning a boat means that you are responsible for that boat.

 

By the way, the most damage that has ever been done to my own boat was when (on several occasions) large and very expensive boats at anchor dragged onto us during bad weather. These were boats with all the mod cons, in beautiful condition, full insurance, etc. The owners in one case denied they had done any damage and sailed off leaving me behind to repair the bow pulpit completely ripped free from the deck. In another case they hit me so hard my boat smashed a hole through their hull (pays to have a strong boat) so we lay anchored near each other for a week while we repaired each other's boats. My point being the so-called derelict boat issue is way overblown in terms of hazards to other boaters--almost never happens. Sure there are exceptions to the rule, but you are much more likely to have an encounter with a totally legal boat that smashes into you, or catches on fire in the marina next to you, or sinks when a hose lets go, etc. The only reason the Florida communities are fretting over this is they are eyesores, can cause pollution issues when they sink, and they take up valuable harbor space. If you are doing none of those things chances are you will be left alone. Been all up and down the East Coast of Florida and the West up to St. Pete and only rarely encountered law enforcement issues, mostly to do with lack of same when other boats were throwing huge wakes and they did nothing.