Towing Story; Rescue or Salvage?

[Fred Ficarra]

Yep, or,

Pay-me-what-you-think-it's-worth. Great idea! Like Yanmarhelp.com.Remember when this all started? The Coast Guard used to come and get us, but their budget was being cut. It was during Carter or Regen. Now you've got to be dead to get CG help. They're too busy driving their chase boats with machine guns looking for terrorists. Easy Phil, it's still a boating related comment. *x

 

[Jack Hart]

Not exactly Fred!

Hi Fred, as I heard it, the tow companies lobbied to stop the Coasties and more specifically the Coast Guard AX from towing as it took money from their pockets.Funny though, if you need a tow on Lake Hickory, NC...it will be a Coast Guard AX member that will do it...free to boot!Jack Hart

 

[Don]

Salvage windall cases..

are a dime a dozen. There have been many cases in the press, particularly in southern waters of apparent "grabs" for salvage rights. The salvor always claims the highest, the insurance company typically settles for something less and more "reasonable". It's just like plaintiff's cases in automobile injury cases. The lawyers make a little, the salvor makes a little and we all pay for the poor insurance company's loss. That's just the way our system works in the US now.BTW, before we shoot the towers, remember they pay extraordinaly insurance premiums themselves, and often have very high operating costs, and we count/hope/depend that they will go out in some of the worst conditions to save our @#$. No, they're not saints, but there are two sides to every story.

 

[Moody Buccaneer]

A reasonable bill would have gone unnoticed ...

Say Sea-Tow charges $150/hour for their services ... they spent 15 minutes handling a line.Take an hour minimum, multiply by 10 for "hazardous conditions" and you get a $1500 bill for 15 min work ...Double that and send the owner a bill for $3000. No problem ... I'd wager that you would get a check and a thank you note by return mail.or ...Send a $230,000 salvage claim.My experience with commercial tow services was a $400 bill for towing me further on to a sand bar in the Sacramento River where I spent the next 36 hours. Seems the tow company boat "had engine problems" and could not return at the next 3 high tides ...If the local tow operator had know the local area (bad assumption on my part) they could have towed me off easily the first try.I hope they spend thousands in court to collect next to nothing.

 

[filthy liberal scum]

salvage and Payback

a few years ago a friend of mine ran aground north of block island, RI. since it was sunday afternoon and he wanted to get back to his home port of mystic, conn he called sea tow to get pulled off rather than wait for the next tide. he verbally asked the operator how much it was going to cost and was given the "i don't know exactly, but it will be expensive reply." lo and behold a couple days later he received a bill for $100k. he claimed it was a salvage and was entitled to 50percent of the value of the boat. my friend then turned it over to his insurence co and they settled for 10k. he then bought a package for tow service. cost him about 75 bucks i believe. NOW THE PAYBACK> a couple months later we were on our way to block island and about 10 to 15 miles out, the wind died and we decided to motor the rest of the way. we had snagged a line and didn't know it until we put it in gear and promptly wrapped it around the prop. called sea tow. quess what!!!!! same operator!!!!! he wanted to tow us to block island, only a few miles away. my friends contract says they had to tow him where ever he wanted, he decided his home port, about 35 miles away,was the place to go for repairs. operator wasn't too happy, but oh well. paybacks can be a bitch. we figure that from the time we called about 4pm to when he got us back to port 1am and he got back to his home port, who knows, that he got a little of what was morally due him.

 

[Brian D]

This is how it is suppose to be...

See the link.

 

[Franklin]

Always insist it's a tow

I've been told that if you say it's a tow and it's agreed before hand that they can't claim salvage. I think the problem with this though is proving that it was agreed apon before hand. The guy I've experienced here in Kemah wasn't a crook but it sure costed me. When I got stuck last year, he tried to help me get out of it over the phone. Only after I tried everything did he come out. It took him 3 hours to get me off the sandbar I was on so he got a nice paycheck that night.