While lawsuit questions seem to be all the rage right now I thought it might be good for me to look at one of the potential law suits I have turned my back on so far.
Setting: new keel boat owners (don't ask, I'm down to one partner at last) pays for mooring rights at Steppingstone Marine in Great Neck, Long Island, NY. The marina provides a mooring anchor, chain and related tackle and assigns us a mooring buoy. The mooring was provided with a single pennant with no chafing gear.
Damage: second season of ownership owner A (me) planned to take our boat to a nearby marina to have it hauled in mid to late October. The chosen day turned out to be so lovely that owner B (not me) who was aboard with his son just wanted to have a nice sail which we did. Our haul out was put off for about a week.
For quite some time owners A, B & C had mentioned the single mooring pennant to each other. Apparently we each expected the other to somehow take care of it, whether owner B spoke to the management, or owners A & C just went out and bought some new pennants and installed them. Nothing ever happened until a few days later a severe storm with westerly winds up to 40 knots and causing significant surf that eventually chafed through the single mooring pennant.
Aside: there was a little voice going on in my head this day and it kept saying that it is getting late in the season and we should have the boat hauled, cleaned etc. I did not listen hard enough to that voice.
Abatement: owner B who lived nearby actually went down to check on our boat during the storm and reported it caught between the pilings of a dock and suggested we attempt to salvage/rescue her. Owners A & C (myself and current boat partner) nixed a self rescue attempt as conditions were quite bad and we were some 20 miles away. Instead we called Boat US (at least the boat was insured) who contacted a marine salvor in the area. Several nail biting hours later the salvage operator or Boat US called to report that our boat had been towed to a City Island marina and was floating without too much damage, as yet unseen. The salvage company rescued more than 10 boats that night, conditions were that bad in western LI Sound.
Damage: hull/deck joint ground away near port bow by piling and barnacles causing an opening about 12" long, at its widest about a 1" gap of space. Harken furler extrusion damaged. Old genny in shreads. Bow pulpit badly beaten by the dock in the rising tide and waves. Exposed flat headed bronze wood screw in teak toe rail by chock caused by single mooring pennant chafing away the wood and itself on the sharp edge of the $.50 screw. One single shredded mooring pennant.
The boat seemed fine otherwise and the engine started right up so we took her to the marina we should have the week before and had her hauled, sprayed and put on stands for the winter and we had all winter to work out the blame, assess the damage and make a plan.
To keep this shorter I can say that an insurance claim was filed and payed and we fixed our boat back up and got a new sail and Furlex unit and all of this was about 9 years ago.
So the questions are:
- should we have sued the marina that provided us with the mooring with one pennant?
- should we have sued each other for not just getting some new pennants and attaching them?
- should we have sued S&S for designing a sailboat with a wooden toe rail that would lead to wood screws embedded in the toe rail under the mooring chocks?
- should we have sued the owner of the dock that our boat repeatedly banged into? (we never paid him for any damage our boat did to his dock and it did some damage.)
- perhaps the village/town of Great Neck who operated the facility?
You know the answers already. We sued no one. We knew that we had made mistakes ourselves and we took the insurance payout to repair our boat and get back out on the water.
Boat partner B could not keep up with his share of the bills for maintaining our old boat and was let out of the partnership a few years later. It did not help him much that we had moved the repaired boat up the Hudson to Nyack and we are all still friends.
Boat partner C is a longtime friend of mine and we still enjoy being out on the water together.
Life is grand if you don't have too much to lose.
Setting: new keel boat owners (don't ask, I'm down to one partner at last) pays for mooring rights at Steppingstone Marine in Great Neck, Long Island, NY. The marina provides a mooring anchor, chain and related tackle and assigns us a mooring buoy. The mooring was provided with a single pennant with no chafing gear.
Damage: second season of ownership owner A (me) planned to take our boat to a nearby marina to have it hauled in mid to late October. The chosen day turned out to be so lovely that owner B (not me) who was aboard with his son just wanted to have a nice sail which we did. Our haul out was put off for about a week.
For quite some time owners A, B & C had mentioned the single mooring pennant to each other. Apparently we each expected the other to somehow take care of it, whether owner B spoke to the management, or owners A & C just went out and bought some new pennants and installed them. Nothing ever happened until a few days later a severe storm with westerly winds up to 40 knots and causing significant surf that eventually chafed through the single mooring pennant.
Aside: there was a little voice going on in my head this day and it kept saying that it is getting late in the season and we should have the boat hauled, cleaned etc. I did not listen hard enough to that voice.
Abatement: owner B who lived nearby actually went down to check on our boat during the storm and reported it caught between the pilings of a dock and suggested we attempt to salvage/rescue her. Owners A & C (myself and current boat partner) nixed a self rescue attempt as conditions were quite bad and we were some 20 miles away. Instead we called Boat US (at least the boat was insured) who contacted a marine salvor in the area. Several nail biting hours later the salvage operator or Boat US called to report that our boat had been towed to a City Island marina and was floating without too much damage, as yet unseen. The salvage company rescued more than 10 boats that night, conditions were that bad in western LI Sound.
Damage: hull/deck joint ground away near port bow by piling and barnacles causing an opening about 12" long, at its widest about a 1" gap of space. Harken furler extrusion damaged. Old genny in shreads. Bow pulpit badly beaten by the dock in the rising tide and waves. Exposed flat headed bronze wood screw in teak toe rail by chock caused by single mooring pennant chafing away the wood and itself on the sharp edge of the $.50 screw. One single shredded mooring pennant.
The boat seemed fine otherwise and the engine started right up so we took her to the marina we should have the week before and had her hauled, sprayed and put on stands for the winter and we had all winter to work out the blame, assess the damage and make a plan.
To keep this shorter I can say that an insurance claim was filed and payed and we fixed our boat back up and got a new sail and Furlex unit and all of this was about 9 years ago.
So the questions are:
- should we have sued the marina that provided us with the mooring with one pennant?
- should we have sued each other for not just getting some new pennants and attaching them?
- should we have sued S&S for designing a sailboat with a wooden toe rail that would lead to wood screws embedded in the toe rail under the mooring chocks?
- should we have sued the owner of the dock that our boat repeatedly banged into? (we never paid him for any damage our boat did to his dock and it did some damage.)
- perhaps the village/town of Great Neck who operated the facility?
You know the answers already. We sued no one. We knew that we had made mistakes ourselves and we took the insurance payout to repair our boat and get back out on the water.
Boat partner B could not keep up with his share of the bills for maintaining our old boat and was let out of the partnership a few years later. It did not help him much that we had moved the repaired boat up the Hudson to Nyack and we are all still friends.
Boat partner C is a longtime friend of mine and we still enjoy being out on the water together.
Life is grand if you don't have too much to lose.
