Block Island Anchor Drag/Tow $$$

[jeanathon]

Tanks,
Cut the cable with a grinder or sawsaw. If the Tow company sues for salvage you will find out if it is salvage or a simple tow, or mail a check for 200 with paid in full written on it. If they cash it you got a contract.

[sabray]

Very well said. I think you had to much trust and got ripped off. As such you fed the bad wolf.

[gettinthere]

'Stupid' 'cry baby'

What a bunch of @holes!

The guy does have a legit question as to whether this was a salvage or a tow. I think $100 is way too low for the tow plus the mooring as well. Maybe the bill for TOWING plus a mooring would be $650. But there is a distinct legal difference between salvage and tow. So all the smart@sses tell him to hire a lawyer...for $2000 or more. F-ing brilliant.

So much for cruisers helping cruisers.

[sabray]

I think he got a tow bill. Salvage would have some negotiation and been much more.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by sabray

I think he got a tow bill. Salvage would have some negotiation and been much more.

Exactly right. $675 is not a salvage bill. It's reasonable for a tow in that area. Actually it's not unreasonable for most anywhere in the US.

[JK n Smitty]

Originally Posted by gettinthere

'Stupid' 'cry baby'

What a bunch of @holes!

The guy does have a legit question as to whether this was a salvage or a tow. I think $100 is way too low for the tow plus the mooring as well. Maybe the bill for TOWING plus a mooring would be $650. But there is a distinct legal difference between salvage and tow. So all the smart@sses tell him to hire a lawyer...for $2000 or more. F-ing brilliant.

So much for cruisers helping cruisers.

Who's the cruiser not offering help?

The guy who tied the boat to his stern? He saved the boat from going on the hard. Should he risk his anchor dragging due to the

[sabray]

Cruiser saved the boat tow guys towed it and stuck it on a mooring. This is not salvage. I don't think anyone was creepy or had cause for using .^^%}]{{=stuff. What's a mooring on the block on the 4th 200 bucks? tow was probably 400 bucks at most. Now your near the charge. Jeez. Sucks but then op knew he didn't anchor well but that's okay cause it was best he could do. Puzzled.

[Sandero]

There are a lot of pirates out there and tow boats are right there with them. I know BI's Great salt pond and the holding is pretty lousy in the NE region for sure. The fee charged is a rip off... no if's and's or but's. Everyone is all concerned with liability and so forth... instead of trying to help out another sailor. Depending on the wind conditions and the ground tackle it may have been possible to re anchor the guy's boat for him and not call the tow guys who would then collect an exorbitant fee. This story stinks.

[Teknav]

Hi Defjef! You are a do-gooder sailor! Liability issues are costly, even under Good Samaritan laws. Let's say, I help a woman in the middle of nowhere deliver her baby. Under Good Samaritan laws, I should not be punished for helping out and for using good judgement if something goes wrong. If a complication developed during the delivery, make no mistake about it that I'd be dragged to court. Who's going to pay for my defense lawyer and my time off work? That's why most health care professionals when traveling, like to remain incognito. We live in a sue-crazy society.

In the above example, what if the anchor fell off while re-positioning it because of poor tackle attachment? How are you going to explain it? The old adage...nice people finish last...is very much alive, unfortunately.

Mauritz

[svmariane]

Would the OP be willing to post on the forum a copy of the tow company invoice? Just to clarify the situation. (Names can be blocked to protect... etc.)

OP claims it's a "salvage" charge; lotta talk on here about a towing charge.

Laws are funny things in that they mean exactly what they say. Regardless of the shoulda/woulda/coulda(s) concerning the pre-incident anchoring maneuver, the OP might very well have a valid point that the tow company was not actually involved in a salvage. They might merely have towed a boat from the Kind Cruiser's stern to a safe mooring - without owner's permission nor legal right to so do. Merely because the Kind Cruiser requested the tow may place no legal liability upon the owner. In effect, it might be legally only a courtesy tow and docking, since there was - at the time the tow company became involved - no hazard to navigation. It may prove out that Kind Cruiser bears the only legal liability to pay for that tow, and OP would have grounds to recover his vessel - sans payment - because of that allocation of liability. Up to tow company to chase down Kind Cruiser.

Word of warning: The tow operator might know the laws and have mentioned to the Kind Cruiser that he - the tow operator - could do nothing unless Kind Cruiser cast adrift the vessel in question. If Kind Cruiser dropped the line, then tow man now had a hazard to navigation in front of his eyes, and indeed an abandoned and drifting vessel worthy of salvage and/or tow & tie up for safety reasons.

Got witnesses?

[frant]

I think that the OP has gotten off pretty lightly for his negligent action. Pay the $650 and HTFE would be my advice. Nothing stopping the original salvage party from giving the abandoned vessel to another party which seems to be the case here.

[Whaubner]

If I had a question of whether a bill was a salvage or a tow bill, I would call my insurance company. They are the other party that has a vested interest in the outcome. Even if you don't have towing insurance, I think the insurance company would want to be clear there is not a salvage claim and the exposure is limited. Personally I would be grateful to pay $600 bucks as an anchoring lesson, and happy my boat was safe and didn't cause any injuries or damage to other property. I would want to verify there was no option for future claims to be made.

I would guess the Good Samaritan didn't specifically call the towing company, If I was the person who tied up your boat I would have called the harbor master. In fact if a boat starts dragging in BI my experience is several people would call the harbor master well before it was secure to another boat. I would guess the towing company monitors this traffic and responds.

It is interesting to hear comments like everyone knows the holding is poor in BI. We anchor there several times a summer never near 4th of July. Our experience has always been the holding was amazing. However we typically anchor in the deeper parts of the pond. We have been in a squall that immediately switched the wind 180 degrees at 30 knots and didn't budge an inch on the anchor. We did see several boats drag and go sailing though the pond, but those where clearly not a holding ground issue as they were anchored next to us in the deep mud.

This past weekend was the first we anchored in the north east section that is shallower. It did take a while to get the anchor to set properly, something that is usually immediate. While boats look close we had the proper amount of scope out, and swung comfortably with our neighbors throughout the night.

I do appreciate the conversation on anchoring in BI, it has been helpful for me to listen to others experience and apply it to my own. It has added an extra degree of caution to anchoring on the east side and biased my preferred spot to other parts of the pond.

[noelex 77]

I think we should lighten up on the OP about dragging. If you anchor long enough you are going to drag, probably on many occasions.

Originally Posted by tanksalot

2. Anchoring with a 7:1 or even 5:1 scope that week would have been impossible without endangering other boats. From seeing their anchor rode, none had that scope. Boats were evenly spaced in 25 - 45 ft. of water, distributed 100 ft. apart. The best anchor would have been a couple of engine blocks, chained together.
.

However, there are always some lessons to learned. I would point a couple of things about the above statement that is incorrect.
1. Unless you are in strong wind (say 35 knots +) you cannot judge the scope another boat has out by the angle of the rode. In light/moderate winds the rode angle visible at the bow will be much the same if the scope is 2:1, or 20:1.
If you have a similar scope, rode and boat type to your neighbours boats can anchor close together on long scopes without any risk of collision.

The only way to know what scope you neighbours have out is too ask (or in nice clear water look).

[Delancey]

Crying about how expensive a tow for your boat on Block Island is on a holiday weekend is like complaining about how expensive it is to buy new shoes for your polo pony, not very classy.

Thinking $100 is a reasonable fee is like paying the neighbor kid $5 to clean the gutters on a 5,000 square foot house and feeling altruistic about it.

I would be curious to know how the OP earns a living and can afford to spend a Block Island weekend on his yot. Whether or not he routinely offers a special "carelessness" discount for people who make mistakes in his own business. Not likely.

[sailorboy1]

I wonder what the OP wants us to tell him, so we could be done with it.