Sea Shepherd Ocean Protectors

[Rustic Charm]

Couldn't find a thread on Sea Shepherd so I thought I'd start a new one. I'm sure it will move into many other topics on the rights and wrongs of the organisation. But to start it off, today Capt Paul Watson announced the following. I was a little surprised that they believe they could legally strip the boat of electronics given some of the previous discussions on the forum.

The "Brigitte Bardot" Finds Lost Boat in the Atlantic
Report from the Brigitte Bardot: At approximately 17:55 EST on April 30th, the first mate of the Brigitte Bardot, Anteo Broadfield spotted a trans-Atlantic row boat drifting at position (position deleted) We tried hailing on VHF and sounding the horn and got no response.We contacted the USCG Puerto Rico via sat phone and talked to Allen Cantu. We then launched the dinghy and investigated. We found no one board and a telep...hone number to call 44-774-706-6311 and spoke with the person on that line and was informed they were in Antigua, all aboard were okay and they were trying to arrange a tow. The vessel is lighted and floating on it's lines. We left it in this same position.
By the law of salvage the Sea Shepherd crew could have claimed the vessel or stripped it of electronics and other valuables. Captain Meyerson however elected to inform the owners of the location of the vessel so they can attempt a recovery.
The "Brigitte Bardot" is en route from Puerto Rico to Dakar, Senegal where she will join the "Jairo Mora Sandoval" to help Senegalese authorities patrol against foreign poaching operations in Senegalese Territorial waters.

[Prairie Chicken]

Ah...., if your quote of the report is accurate, I don't read it as the Paul Watson having stripped the boat--I read it as they could have but elected to contact the phone number they found on board. Am I missing something?

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Prairie Chicken

Ah...., if your quote of the report is accurate, I don't read it as the Paul Watson having stripped the boat--I read it as they could have but elected to contact the phone number they found on board. Am I missing something?

Your absolutely right. I did not post what I was thinking. My question was 'could they' have stripped it under laws of Salvage? But, as I've been reading from other posts the Laws of Salvage, both national and international seem to be quite varied.

[Red Sky]

Did I misread this? Where does it say that they stripped it of electronics?
Edit: sorry posted in-time with PC.

[Rustic Charm]

Okay, my mistake. I've worked out how to edit the original post and question.

[Stumble]

Frankly it's complicated. Salvage law does not allow you to just take stuff off the boat, or just take the boat. Generally (and this is very generally) if you find a boat adrift at sea that has been abandoned you can tow it back to shore and get a maritime salvage lein against it. Then you go to court to determine the percentage of the boats value you get to keep.

For something like this a claim of 50-75% would not suprise me at all.

If the entire boat can't be saved, then you could take electronics or other expensive items from the boat. They would then need to be deposited with the court (or local official) and a maritime lein for salvage taken against the equipment. Again a 50-75% lein would be pretty reasonable.


So they are right they could have taken just the electronics, but they are incorrect that they could have kept everything legally. In practice however that's likely what would have happened since it wouldn't be worth the hassle to the equipments owner to fight over the residual value of the gear.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by tedsherrin

Okay, my mistake. I've worked out how to edit the original post and question.

LOL... proof readers on CF..

[Red Sky]

Good on Captain Meyerson for doing the right thing.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Stumble

So they are right they could have taken just the electronics, but they are incorrect that they could have kept everything legally. In practice however that's likely what would have happened since it wouldn't be worth the hassle to the equipments owner to fight over the residual value of the gear.

Yes, that's what I would have thought.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by tedsherrin

Yes, that's what I would have thought.

And... if they had taken it they'd have likely been intelligent enough to keep their mouth shut..
Unlike a certain boat and the French boat they came across

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by boatman61

And... if they had taken it they'd have likely been intelligent enough to keep their mouth shut..
Unlike a certain boat and the French boat they came across

[cappy208]

From a professional mariners viewpoint, having read many pages of what SeaShepherd has done on the water, I would not take ANYTHING they say as either gospel, true, ethical or honest.

They are a bunch of publicity seeking hounds who do NO good for the environment, no good for enhancing the public knowledge of whaling (for good or bad) and certainly violate just about every time honored tradition of helping other seaman, and being professional while they do it. They threaten the lives of others, they threaten the lives of their own crew, and they break almost every maritime law doing it.

They are good people to NOT emulate while at sea.


And, No. They aren't too intelligent to keep their yaps shut, as was evidenced by the other post. They aren't alone in being somewhat less than intelligent on the water.

[Rustic Charm]

LOL, I hooked one.. Took a while but if you fish long enough your bound to catch something. And usually it's someone who has fallen for the media hype. Lol

[minaret]

Originally Posted by tedsherrin

LOL, I hooked one.. Took a while but if you fish long enough your bound to catch something. And usually it's someone who has fallen for the media hype. Lol

Hmmmm, what's more appropriate for this forum, troll or trawl?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by tedsherrin

LOL, I hooked one.. Took a while but if you fish long enough your bound to catch something. And usually it's someone who has fallen for the media hype. Lol

And Ted, we are all REALLY proud of you! What a guy!

Jim