Are you responsible for removing your boat from land from a hurricane?

[PLANET EXPRESS]

Originally Posted by swordds

Well then, I suppose all of those people who owned houses near the beach should be responsible for cleaning up all of the debris left behind when their houses blew away in Hurricane Michael.

Yep WOOT!!! And the sand we paid for to keep ones left from falling in!!
If we make owning boats to expensive a lot of jobs will be lost.

[Hoosierdoc]

https://www.wjhg.com/content/news/Th...474115303.html

This boat washed up last year in Miramar. I called the owner and he was frosted the tow company did not have it secured as they promised. Then it cleared a sandbar and beached. The city fines you daily. He eventually sold it and a salvage company broke the transom pushing it back into the water to tow and get fixed. I wonder if it was hit by Michael

[hellosailor]

Ah, but a house is real estate and a boat is chattel goods. There's a thousand or two years of legal precedent that says the two are treated differently.

As to whether "someone" should be responsible for the mess after a disaster, that's a somewhat larger issue.

Apparently if someone's house, or boat, is on your lawn, FEMA won't help with that. But if you can get it to the curbside, FEMA will reimburse your town for removing it from there. So the glass is half full.

[Chris Whitney]

My neighbors tree fell on my fence and into my yard. Attorneys said I had to clean it up... not the owner of the tree!

[lituya1617]

Deadbeat? If a huge and unpredictable storm (act of God) comes along and destroys your boat or tosses it into someone else's property and damages that, you are not responsible for the losses as long as you have done what was reasonable and prudent to protect your property and the property of others. [Other countries have different laws however.] This means that if you tie up your boat as well as reasonable or move it to what you think is a safe place, you are not going to have to pay damages. I had a sailboat tossed onto the land in Katrina. I paid to have it put back in the water but I could have just written it off. A lot of people did after that hurricane. You might be sued if your boat is up on the beach or damages property, but that can happen to anyone for any reason. The law is on your side here. The term deadbeat is a nasty comment. In my opinion, the insurance racket when it comes to boats is really predatory. If you can afford a boat but not insurance at 3% of the value of the boat per year, you are not a deadbeat, just not a rich guy. Boat insurance comes with so many restrictions that it is not of much use in the real world anyway. The current trend of marinas around the world to require liability and damage insurance is a money-making scam promoted by the insurance companies and assisted by government bureaucrats who were probably bribed. I anchor out when in other countries when marinas there demand proof of insurance. High seas insurance is so expensive that it would be cheaper to just take a jet to visit foreign ports. Most insurance policies are only good for 70 miles offshore and no more. If you go out of the country, high seas insurance is the type required but you will gag at the cost! Other countries often require their own national insurance, Mexico for example. Their insurance is extremely expensive. I skip Mexico. But the insurance you pay a ton of money for here is no good in most other countries. If you want insurance when traveling internationally, you have to have a policy underwritten in each country you are going to visit - a time-consuming and expensive thing to arrange. A boat older than 15 years cannot usually be insured except for liability. In 73 years of boating I have never had anyone sue me. I never damaged anyone to justify a suit. Insurance is a great scam for the guys collecting the money, but not a good thing for the average boater. I once tried to insure a boat I sailed to another continent several times and the insurance was so high it would have cost more than it cost to buy the the boat per year! Good boating practices are the best insurance. If you are a sailor, you accept some risks as a part of the seagoing life.

[lituya1617]

Depending on jurisdiction, boats are usually treated as legal entities. This usually means the boat can be sued but the owner is not responsible beyond the value of the boat unless he has been negligent. Maritime law is complex but for the small boater, the cost of a boat is so small that lawyers do not attack small boat owners in court. Practically, this means a small boat that washes up on your lawn is your problem if the owner simply ignores it. Again, it depends on where the damage takes place. From my point of view, it is better to own a small and inexpensive boat that you can afford to write off and not insure. If you get caught up in the money game with boats you have to have a lot of money. Better to enjoy boating rather than luxury.

[Mickeyrouse]

That’s what insurance is for. Our Bermuda 40 sank in Hurricane Rita in ‘05. Insurance co. sent an adjuster down from Massachusetts, A five-man salvage crew from Carrabelle Fl, a 100 ton crane crew (with escort vehicle) from Baton Rouge and a yacht transporter to Beaumont Tex, moved the salvaged boat to Mandeville La and stored it for three months. Figured the whole price tag came in around $20k. ( Happy ending: after four year re-fit, have been sailing on her since, including as I write this from a secluded anchorage. See avatar photo.)