For what it is worth, I live in the
BVI,
work in the
marine industry, was here for the flood, Irma and Maria, and for all but a couple of weeks of the recovery. And, I am fairly well "connected".
I won't say there aren't ANY such boats, but I don't know of them. Doesn't it seem logical that in a small country, whose biggest employer is the tourist/yachting industry, that those of us in that industry would have been the first people to have been informed by salvors/owners/surveyors of any decent wrecks? That's the way it works, anywhere. Without lifting a finger, I could have been involved with five, myself. Lifting just one finger, probably a dozen more. Raising my hand? Countless! But they are gone, now, and have been for a long time. The previous comment about the
BVI having been crawling with amateur salvors, a year ago, was true, and some of them were looking at really promising projects, whilst others were just picking at the bones.
Bearing in mind that you are "aware of everything attached", let me answer a few of your questions and edit a few of the answers you have already received:
1) We are very well along in our recovery, and most
marinas are back in action, but certainly not all.
2) There is no graveyard with a plethora of abandoned boats. The
Government took early action on that, passing a law that allowed them to tag apparently abandoned vessels, and then to claim them and dispose of them after six months. This has been an ongoing
project. It took awhile to come online, and it's not over, but they have done fairly well. The stuff that is left is generally more difficult to access, or has not yet been reached.
3) We don't burn the boats here! Sheesh....we are concerned for own
environment. We are more clever than that. We ship them, sometimes whole and sometimes crushed, to the US, where there are places that DO burn them, or whatever. So, no, boats were NOT being burned when any of the commentators were here.
Shrew is correct in that most boats had their usable parts removed for re-use. A company Harbor Shoppers (I think that's its name), was set up in St. Thomas to sell these. They might even have a
boat or two!
Parts are in fairly good supply, but it is always possible that specific things are not. The chandleries are still stocking up, post Irma. You can
import stuff, but it's not duty free and express services are very expensive. Regular freight is not, but it takes a week or so, if from the US, and a lot more from elsewhere.
Unless you are planning on doing all the
work yourself (and you may have to get both boatyard and
government permission to do so), some critical marine
repair establishments are not short of work, although many have caught up from Irma's effects. But, as an example, I have some fairly detailed
gelcoat work to be done this summer, by a yard (owned by friends), that will not be able to do it until June....and we have been discussing opportunities since early LAST summer.
All of which you need to
research very carefully, since any delay will likely result in lay days of $100 to $200, per day!
With regard to
ownership, typically that transferred to
insurance companies following payouts for total losses. Some transfers were troubled, due to unclear chains of
ownership, but mostly, the insurers owned the boats, not the yards. Since the insurers were on the hook for yard
fees, they did their best to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Indeed, they dropped the threshold for declaring a
boat a total loss, in order to avoid lengthy yard stays, and they approved of
shipping quite a few boats elsewhere for speedier
repairs....(not sure quite how well that worked out, however). Since the yards do a big business in
hurricane season
storage, they also had an incentive to clear things out, which they have done. It's nothing like the photos you probably saw and may still be looking at!
I think that Shrew is absolutely right about you being really late to the party. Irma was 20 months ago! But, if I were you, before I came here, I would contact the Nanny Cay Boatyard and the Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour Boatyard to see if they know of anything..perhaps a boat that an amateur salvor has abandoned. I would call
Commercial Divers and Husky Salvage, to ask the same question. I would call
Caribbean Surveyors and West Indies surveyors and ask there....a lot of the
insurance company owned boats were placed by these two. I would call the Moorings. Then, I would call a couple of the yacht brokerages, primarily BVI Yacht Sales, who moved a lot of Irma boats. With the exception of the surveyors and Nanny Cay, I would take everything with a least a grain of
salt, and maybe a good big pinch, simply because it is very hard to really ascertain what you are looking at until really
diving into the
repair, which will obviously not have happened. It is human nature to be optimistic, and boats have a way of hiding some of their worst secrets!
If you don't find anything really promising, through those sources, I would give it a rest.