douglee25
Well-Known Member
Do you guys remember this story?
Here's the follow-up on the 480 DB.
Doug
http://www.madmariner.com/ownership...BOAT_TRACTORS_WRECK_REMOVAL_BAHAMAS_082808_OI
Wreck Removal What Happens When a Boat Cannot Be Salvaged? Call in the Tractors. By Kari Pugh Updated September 4, 2008
The photos are as compelling to look at as they are horrifying to anyone who owns a boat.
Last month, a series of 19 snapshots captured the demise of a beached flybridge cruiser as two massive excavator tractors tore it from the sand on Harbour Island in the Bahamas with mechanized claws.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. The photos made the rounds on the Internet, viewed thousands of times on forums and in email, where boaters debated endlessly whether they were doctored.
Whether or not the photos are genuine – and they appear to be (see sidebar) – the question they pose is all too real: when the worst has happened and a boat has wrecked, what comes next?
The answer, according to salvage experts and maritime attorneys, is that a determination must be made between salvage and wreck removal.
In the case of salvage, the boat and its cargo are saved, which can be as simple as a tow home or as complicated as re-floating a sunken vessel. The work can be lucrative for salvage companies with the expertise and daring to pull off such operations – and expensive for the owner.
The alternative is wreck removal – the stuff of chainsaws and tractors – which is less profitable for salvage companies but can still be extremely costly to the owner, both financially and emotionally. It may seem shocking when captured on film, but the truth is that many wrecked boats are simply chopped up and sold for scrap.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. "It happens every day," said John Andrews, a longtime marine salvor.
THE DYING SEA RAY
In the case of the Harbour Island wreck, Bruce Wilson's salvage crew arrived within the hour. At first glance, Wilson didn't know the 48-foot Sea Ray couldn't be saved, and he wouldn't have guessed that photos of the boat’s death would get so popular.
The series of shots begins with images of the luxurious white yacht stuck to the deck in sand on a pristine Caribbean beach. The excavators then close in on the vessel, tearing into the hull and deck, depositing chunks in a nearby dump truck and leaving the boat in splinters as tourists under umbrellas watched.
Wilson's company, based in the Bahamas' Spanish Wells, got a call from the owner to come salvage his boat after striking a reef on Harbour Beach, near the Dunmore Beach Club Hotel.
By the time they reached it, the boat was already on the bottom, and the seas "weren't very pretty," he said. Wilson said his crew remained with the boat for a couple of days. They didn't know the extent of the damage as they worked to get it from the bottom.
"As soon as we got it righted, we saw the bottom was gone," he said. "It was completely gutted by the sea."
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. An insurance adjuster stepped in and ordered all work to stop. When he declared the yacht a total loss, Wilson put in a bid for wreck removal. Another salvage company had arrived by that time and did the same.
"We tried to get the contract," Wilson said, "We were undercut."
So it goes the salvage business. Despite righting the boat and bringing it to the surface, Wilson's crew walked away without seeing a dime.
"We did a lot of work, we got nothing," he said. "That's part of the game. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you," he said.
He still can’t understand the fuss about the photos.
"No big deal," he said.
SALVAGE VERSUS REMOVAL
It is important for boat owners to understand the distinction between salvage and wreck removal, said Maritime attorney John Fulweiler, who has handled many salvage cases and frequently writes about the topic.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. When a salvage company saves or preserves a vessel, maritime law provides a salvage award to the company that is usually calculated as a proportion of the vessel's (and its cargo's) value. When a vessel is deemed a constructive total loss, whereby there is no meaningful value left justifying a salvage operation, it generally becomes a matter of wreck removal.
Insurance companies will treat the two cases very differently. Marine insurance policies often define parameters and definitions for each case and spell out how much the policy will pay – all good information for owners to know in advance, Fulweiler said.
Salvage companies will also treat the cases differently. Saving a vessel from the sea is dangerous work and requires a lot of expensive preparation to be able to respond on a moment's notice – but it can have big payoffs. When a boat meets misfortune on the water and a salvor's reward is based on the value of what is saved, as opposed to a simple payment for labor and materials, there is a lot of incentive for salvage crews to confront the danger, if the cargo or vessel are valuable enough.
However, Andrews says crews can also put in a lot of work only to find, as Wilson did, that the vessel cannot be saved or that the insurance company is writing it off as a constructive total loss.
"Wreck removal doesn't pay quite as well," Andrews said.
THE OWNER PAYS
Whatever the case, salvage or removal, the owner of the boat is usually responsible for the costs, both of removing the boat and handling any necessary cleanup. Wrecked vessels can present an eyesore and a hazard to navigation, but they can also pose major environmental problems.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. Most boats carry fuel – hundreds of gallons, in the case of large powerboats – as well as lube oils, gray water and black water. All can wreak havoc on a sensitive marine environment.
According to the Coast Guard, if it's possible to clean up fuel or oil without posing a danger to those doing recovery work, then it is the owner's responsibility to make it happen. State laws also cover how boats can be moved and removed, which can also impact costs.
In the case of salvage, while the award to the salvor may be large, the value saved is usually great which makes it an easier pill to swallow. Wreck removal, on the other hand, can get expensive and its costs can quickly exceed the vessel's scrap value, and many insurance policies cap how much an insurer will pay.
The high costs wreck removal may explain why derelict boats litter waterways around the country.
Abandoned boats are a plague to local and state governments, who must pay to have them removed when the owner cannot be identified. A small runabout might cost as much as $2,000 to haul away and break up at a landfill, and a 30-footer might cost three times that much, according to BoatU.S. Add another $25,000 if the vessel is sunk and needs to be raised.
Boating states like New York, Florida and California have lists of hundreds of boats that need to be removed.
TENACIOUS CARISSA
Wreck removal not only can be costly, but it can be complicated and time consuming – especially when large, commercial ships are involved – as a case off the Oregon coast exemplifies.
Nine years ago, a 639-foot Panamanian-registered bulk carrier called New Carissa dragged anchor while its Filipino crew was waiting to motor into Coos Bay for a load of wood chips, according to press accounts. A harbor pilot nearly backed it off the beach, but the surf pushed it back and it soon became a hulking intruder on the sand.
During the original removal operations, Navy demolition experts set off a towering fire to consume the fuel oil that had started leaking onto the beach and fouling birds and shellfish. The flames, shooting 300 feet into the air, weakened the cracked hull and the ship broke in two.
A tug managed to tow the bow section off the beach, but it beached again when a tow line broke. It was towed out to sea again, but a Navy destroyer couldn't sink it with artillery; finally, a sub fired a torpedo that sent it to the bottom in 10,000 feet of water.
But the stern, including the engine room, resisted all attempts to be pulled off the beach and it sat there, shifting position in the surf but refusing to go away. Last year, a Florida-based salvage company called Titan won a $16.5 million contract to remove the New Carissa's wreckage. The deadline is Oct. 1 this year.
Salvage divers, welders and crane operators are now scrambling around the rusted, barnacle-encrusted remains of the freighter, wielding heavy cutting torches to reduce the wreck to scrap.
HAPPY ENDING
There are, of course, stories that have a happy – if expensive – ending, too.
In 2005, billionaire Peter Halmos was searching for Spanish galleon off Key West aboard his 158-foot sailing yacht Legacy when Hurricane Wilma struck. The captain and crew decided to ride out the storm near shore, a harrowing ordeal as Wilma picked up the boat and deposited it on a federally-protected reef.
When it was over, Legacy was aground miles away from where it had anchored, stuck in the sand where the government protects sensitive varieties of seagrass that provide a habitat for fish. Had Halmos simply dragged Legacy out, it would damage the grass and he would have incurred millions of dollars in fines.
For three years, he tried to work out an agreement with NOAA, living aboard his stranded yacht, or on houseboats nearby, and protecting the boat from pirates, sometimes at gunpoint. He never left his ship – until this spring when the boat was finally freed, towed out inch-by-inch in a complicated and expensive process designed to minimize environmental damage.
Fulweiler has a word of advice for boat owners like Halmos, who may not have quite as much money but still don’t want to see their vessel dismantled.
"Stay with your vessel and do everything you can to stay positive that this is going to turn out OK," he said. "If it's a close call as to what to do, that may be enough to turn the tide. I think owners sometimes walk away, thinking it's going to be taken care of by somebody else and they'll see their baby back in the slip. It doesn't always happen that way and being involved can sometimes influence an outcome— both emotionally and financially."
Kari Pugh is an editor at Mad Mariner.
Here's the follow-up on the 480 DB.
Doug
http://www.madmariner.com/ownership...BOAT_TRACTORS_WRECK_REMOVAL_BAHAMAS_082808_OI
Wreck Removal What Happens When a Boat Cannot Be Salvaged? Call in the Tractors. By Kari Pugh Updated September 4, 2008
The photos are as compelling to look at as they are horrifying to anyone who owns a boat.
Last month, a series of 19 snapshots captured the demise of a beached flybridge cruiser as two massive excavator tractors tore it from the sand on Harbour Island in the Bahamas with mechanized claws.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. The photos made the rounds on the Internet, viewed thousands of times on forums and in email, where boaters debated endlessly whether they were doctored.Whether or not the photos are genuine – and they appear to be (see sidebar) – the question they pose is all too real: when the worst has happened and a boat has wrecked, what comes next?
The answer, according to salvage experts and maritime attorneys, is that a determination must be made between salvage and wreck removal.
In the case of salvage, the boat and its cargo are saved, which can be as simple as a tow home or as complicated as re-floating a sunken vessel. The work can be lucrative for salvage companies with the expertise and daring to pull off such operations – and expensive for the owner.
The alternative is wreck removal – the stuff of chainsaws and tractors – which is less profitable for salvage companies but can still be extremely costly to the owner, both financially and emotionally. It may seem shocking when captured on film, but the truth is that many wrecked boats are simply chopped up and sold for scrap.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. "It happens every day," said John Andrews, a longtime marine salvor.THE DYING SEA RAY
In the case of the Harbour Island wreck, Bruce Wilson's salvage crew arrived within the hour. At first glance, Wilson didn't know the 48-foot Sea Ray couldn't be saved, and he wouldn't have guessed that photos of the boat’s death would get so popular.
The series of shots begins with images of the luxurious white yacht stuck to the deck in sand on a pristine Caribbean beach. The excavators then close in on the vessel, tearing into the hull and deck, depositing chunks in a nearby dump truck and leaving the boat in splinters as tourists under umbrellas watched.
Wilson's company, based in the Bahamas' Spanish Wells, got a call from the owner to come salvage his boat after striking a reef on Harbour Beach, near the Dunmore Beach Club Hotel.
By the time they reached it, the boat was already on the bottom, and the seas "weren't very pretty," he said. Wilson said his crew remained with the boat for a couple of days. They didn't know the extent of the damage as they worked to get it from the bottom.
"As soon as we got it righted, we saw the bottom was gone," he said. "It was completely gutted by the sea."
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. An insurance adjuster stepped in and ordered all work to stop. When he declared the yacht a total loss, Wilson put in a bid for wreck removal. Another salvage company had arrived by that time and did the same."We tried to get the contract," Wilson said, "We were undercut."
So it goes the salvage business. Despite righting the boat and bringing it to the surface, Wilson's crew walked away without seeing a dime.
"We did a lot of work, we got nothing," he said. "That's part of the game. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you," he said.
He still can’t understand the fuss about the photos.
"No big deal," he said.
SALVAGE VERSUS REMOVAL
It is important for boat owners to understand the distinction between salvage and wreck removal, said Maritime attorney John Fulweiler, who has handled many salvage cases and frequently writes about the topic.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. When a salvage company saves or preserves a vessel, maritime law provides a salvage award to the company that is usually calculated as a proportion of the vessel's (and its cargo's) value. When a vessel is deemed a constructive total loss, whereby there is no meaningful value left justifying a salvage operation, it generally becomes a matter of wreck removal.Insurance companies will treat the two cases very differently. Marine insurance policies often define parameters and definitions for each case and spell out how much the policy will pay – all good information for owners to know in advance, Fulweiler said.
Salvage companies will also treat the cases differently. Saving a vessel from the sea is dangerous work and requires a lot of expensive preparation to be able to respond on a moment's notice – but it can have big payoffs. When a boat meets misfortune on the water and a salvor's reward is based on the value of what is saved, as opposed to a simple payment for labor and materials, there is a lot of incentive for salvage crews to confront the danger, if the cargo or vessel are valuable enough.
However, Andrews says crews can also put in a lot of work only to find, as Wilson did, that the vessel cannot be saved or that the insurance company is writing it off as a constructive total loss.
"Wreck removal doesn't pay quite as well," Andrews said.
THE OWNER PAYS
Whatever the case, salvage or removal, the owner of the boat is usually responsible for the costs, both of removing the boat and handling any necessary cleanup. Wrecked vessels can present an eyesore and a hazard to navigation, but they can also pose major environmental problems.
Click this photo to see 19-picture slideshow. Most boats carry fuel – hundreds of gallons, in the case of large powerboats – as well as lube oils, gray water and black water. All can wreak havoc on a sensitive marine environment. According to the Coast Guard, if it's possible to clean up fuel or oil without posing a danger to those doing recovery work, then it is the owner's responsibility to make it happen. State laws also cover how boats can be moved and removed, which can also impact costs.
In the case of salvage, while the award to the salvor may be large, the value saved is usually great which makes it an easier pill to swallow. Wreck removal, on the other hand, can get expensive and its costs can quickly exceed the vessel's scrap value, and many insurance policies cap how much an insurer will pay.
The high costs wreck removal may explain why derelict boats litter waterways around the country.
Abandoned boats are a plague to local and state governments, who must pay to have them removed when the owner cannot be identified. A small runabout might cost as much as $2,000 to haul away and break up at a landfill, and a 30-footer might cost three times that much, according to BoatU.S. Add another $25,000 if the vessel is sunk and needs to be raised.
Boating states like New York, Florida and California have lists of hundreds of boats that need to be removed.
TENACIOUS CARISSA
Wreck removal not only can be costly, but it can be complicated and time consuming – especially when large, commercial ships are involved – as a case off the Oregon coast exemplifies.
During the original removal operations, Navy demolition experts set off a towering fire to consume the fuel oil that had started leaking onto the beach and fouling birds and shellfish. The flames, shooting 300 feet into the air, weakened the cracked hull and the ship broke in two.
A tug managed to tow the bow section off the beach, but it beached again when a tow line broke. It was towed out to sea again, but a Navy destroyer couldn't sink it with artillery; finally, a sub fired a torpedo that sent it to the bottom in 10,000 feet of water.
But the stern, including the engine room, resisted all attempts to be pulled off the beach and it sat there, shifting position in the surf but refusing to go away. Last year, a Florida-based salvage company called Titan won a $16.5 million contract to remove the New Carissa's wreckage. The deadline is Oct. 1 this year.
Salvage divers, welders and crane operators are now scrambling around the rusted, barnacle-encrusted remains of the freighter, wielding heavy cutting torches to reduce the wreck to scrap.
HAPPY ENDING
There are, of course, stories that have a happy – if expensive – ending, too.
In 2005, billionaire Peter Halmos was searching for Spanish galleon off Key West aboard his 158-foot sailing yacht Legacy when Hurricane Wilma struck. The captain and crew decided to ride out the storm near shore, a harrowing ordeal as Wilma picked up the boat and deposited it on a federally-protected reef.
When it was over, Legacy was aground miles away from where it had anchored, stuck in the sand where the government protects sensitive varieties of seagrass that provide a habitat for fish. Had Halmos simply dragged Legacy out, it would damage the grass and he would have incurred millions of dollars in fines.
For three years, he tried to work out an agreement with NOAA, living aboard his stranded yacht, or on houseboats nearby, and protecting the boat from pirates, sometimes at gunpoint. He never left his ship – until this spring when the boat was finally freed, towed out inch-by-inch in a complicated and expensive process designed to minimize environmental damage.
Fulweiler has a word of advice for boat owners like Halmos, who may not have quite as much money but still don’t want to see their vessel dismantled.
"Stay with your vessel and do everything you can to stay positive that this is going to turn out OK," he said. "If it's a close call as to what to do, that may be enough to turn the tide. I think owners sometimes walk away, thinking it's going to be taken care of by somebody else and they'll see their baby back in the slip. It doesn't always happen that way and being involved can sometimes influence an outcome— both emotionally and financially."
Kari Pugh is an editor at Mad Mariner.
Last edited:
