Is there opportunity here?

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

What you need is really cheap labor and a gov't subsidy to pay for all or most of your materials.

I don't know if the local authorities are interested in this, but if you pitch the prison warden the concept of a rehab program teaching inmates valuable skills such as marine engine rebuilding, sewing sails, refinishing wood, repairing fiberglass hulls, electrical repair, etc. they might be interested. There are actually a lot of prison industries that use prison labor (like 25 cents/hr) and get gov't subsidies for rehab. Not to mention they're learning valuable skills. When was the last time you heard anyone say, "Boy, that Yanmar repair was cheap!" or "He fixed my sail drive dirt cheap!"

I don't know how hard it is to get it started, but I have heard of prison industries rebuilding cars, building school desks, furniture, etc. I'm assuming you're in IL. Here's an online catalog of prison industries in IL.

Home - Illinois Correctional Industries

Probably one of the more upbeat replies.

Whenever I hear "government subsidies" the hair on the back of my neck goes up. Those costs always get pushed down to the taxpayer and bureaucrats take a healthy bite out as middlemen.

We do use some minimum-security inmates here (Texas) for landscaping and the like, but the cost and limitations there - guards, transportation, paperwork - likely make it more expensive that we might think.

But thanks! At least that's a can-do attitude!

[alansmith]

Heh Woodward, man that was some good thinking there. Recycling and repurposing resources. Kind of like taking old jets and lopping their wings off and making homes out of the fuselage. Or taking shipping containers and going at it with metal cutting torches.

The post on the prison gig... here is my advice... smile... when u go to pitch your idea...
bake a cake. Put it in a box. Put an envelope stuffed with cash inside the cake box. Give him a wink and look at the box for a long period of time. Heh, ... it worked in Shawshank Redemption!!! Sometimes I even crack my self up. He he.

[hellosailor]

Valiant-
I don't know the Texas laws, which may well be different from US laws in general because of the Spanish heritage, shared mainly by Cali and FL and not a lot else.
But if boats are titled property there, and your marina owner is just lifting them up and crushing them after non=payment?
Yeah, a lot of guys have done that as the practical thing. And it is still illegal theft or conversion of titled property, in which case he's setting himself up for some poor broke SOB to make a lot of money saying "He stole my boat!"
You'd have to look into a lot of local laws to find out. And what the marina owener has to say about it, may be CYA and may bring his unwanted attention to you as a troublemaker, if indeed he's in gross violation.

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Valiant-
I don't know the Texas laws, which may well be different from US laws in general because of the Spanish heritage, shared mainly by Cali and FL and not a lot else.
But if boats are titled property there, and your marina owner is just lifting them up and crushing them after non=payment?
Yeah, a lot of guys have done that as the practical thing. And it is still illegal theft or conversion of titled property, in which case he's setting himself up for some poor broke SOB to make a lot of money saying "He stole my boat!"
You'd have to look into a lot of local laws to find out. And what the marina owener has to say about it, may be CYA and may bring his unwanted attention to you as a troublemaker, if indeed he's in gross violation.

Actually, this is in Louisiana, but point taken. Whether the laws there are based on Spanish, French, or Canadian laws is probably a good question, but purely an academic one.

The owner of the marina is no rube, he owns several businesses aside from the marina and he has assets, so I doubt he would either be foolish or uninformed enough to endanger his financial position.

As for "legally titled" - I can't even speak to that. Seems enforcement of registration laws is so lax in this part of the country that finding a boat with current registration stickers is pretty rare. I see several with no registration stickers. (Which is required in LA even for documented boats.) I also never see a DNR guy though I hear they do regularly stop commercial vessels. Being from a big city in a state that loves bureaucracy and paperwork, LA is a completely different animal. I'd bet even money that a lot if the boats here - especially the derelicts - likely have changed hands multiple times without documentation. We "Yankees" just worry too much about formality.

I would think that some EPA type agency would also be on the scene as sunken boats represent a pollution and contamination risk -and this is right next to a state park.

Finally, having watched "Storage Wars" more than a few times, it seems logical to me that renting a slip, then failing to pay rent for more than a given length of times, gives the property owner some rights to recover their list income. Again, state laws may vary, but posting a legal notice in the newspaper of record for a given jurisdiction advising that the property in question ("Contents of locker #123 at Joe Blow Self Storage will be sold at auction on xx/yy/zzzz unless the renter pays the back rent") it's done all the time. I think if a renter was storing a titled motorcycle, ski-doo, or whatever - it would still be covered.

Sure, most states have laws and requirements to evict a tenant that are heavily weighted on the side of the renter and against the landlord, but that is to keep people who have list a job from being thrown out on to the street in January, the same conditions don't seem to apply to "storage".

Anyway, the legal "difficulty" of doing some things is just one facet of the total problem, and one that is likely easier to accomplish than the technological or economic facets of the situation.

[hellosailor]

No idea if marinas have finagled the same special rules (or smart contracts?) that storage lockers have. Only dealt with landlords and garages and marinas in the original "colonies", where life tends to be different.

Loosiana? Yeah.(G) Some years ago I had a customer named "Washington George" and I meekly said to him, pardon me but I just have to ask do I have this backwards? He just smiled and said no, that was his name. The midwife got it backwards on the birth certificate, and anything you needed to fix or change in the parish became an incredibly long and expensive task, so they just left it be.

I have no idea what their rules for boats and marinas are down there. If I pass through, I'll worry about it then.

[ValiantV]

With all the speculation about laws regulating marinas, I thought I'd look it up.

Sure enough, LA has a statute regulating marinas and laying out a marina owners rights and remedies.

http://codes.findlaw.com/la/revised-...sect-4784.html

Though I'm sure I've left out a detail or two, in short it seems to say that after slip rent is 180 days in arrears, the marina owner can take action to recover his money.

Even in our backwater marina, six months rent is $900. (Cheap!) I'd be willing to bet the "commercial value" of the boat I posted a pic of likely less than $900 and I'd bet the owner - if he could be reached - would say "Sure, take the boat. Good luck". (He would still be liable for the $900 though.... Even if the boat sold, he'd owe the balance)

Apparently, LA laws in this case are based on Common Law, so I'd be willing to bet laws similar to this are the rule rather than the exception.

That big storm they had down here some years ago -and may have heard of it - caused 1,000's of boats to break their lines or wash off their trailers and end up in the strangest places. Tho owners retain all of their rights to those boats. (How you get it out of the tree is your own problem)

[hellosailor]

Sounds like they can SELL it, but not seize it and trash it.
And it also sounds like the marina owner would need to search out any liens and make sure those were satisfied, or else worry about subsequent claims from the lienholders.

Just picking 'em up and crunching 'em? I must have missed that section.

A boat in a tree doesn't sound like much of a problem. Gets rid of those pesky marina fees, doesn't it?

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Sounds like they can SELL it, but not seize it and trash it.
And it also sounds like the marina owner would need to search out any liens and make sure those were satisfied, or else worry about subsequent claims from the lienholders.

Just picking 'em up and crunching 'em? I must have missed that section.

A boat in a tree doesn't sound like much of a problem. Gets rid of those pesky marina fees, doesn't it?

I suppose if that boat that's been submerged for at least six months has a lien on it, then there are people in worse shape than the marina owner.

So the marina owner *sells* the boat to somebody at auction. What that guy does with it isn't the marina owner's problem.

I believe mailing the owner's last known address and publishing the required notice in the paper would likely satisfy the marina owner's responsibilities. I suppose that a savvy marina owner would require the slip renter supply the names of any lienholders at the time if rental.

Then again, I suppose a marina owner sharp enough to think of all that before hand wouldn't have a marina with a bunch of derelect boats.....