Questionable Salvage On 58TC

[Freeebird]

Please don’t confuse your google search with a law degree.

And your point would be?

That's the definition of the folks who have one. It has a link and everything.

[Capt Chad]

Randy, by definition (not the google one) maritime salvage can be a simple tow. It is a low order salvage. It does not rate a compensation based off of the value of a vessel or any uplifts for other factors.

Within the industry acts such as raising and dewatering vessels that have sank and refloating grounded vessels are referred to as salvage operations.

The Captain in question refloated a vessel that was aground. The master of that vessel allowed him to attach lift bags and deploy divers on his vessel.

You are implying that someone was wronged. I only assumed that you meant the vessels master. How was he wronged.

I'm seriously asking because I don't understand. What was the bill? Was it discussed beforehand?

[Capt Chad]

Randy, no I owned a couple of towing companies.

OK, I think I understand by one of your comments where the rub is now.

You are saying that the ungrounding should have been covered under his membership is that the point you are trying to get across?

And if that is your argument, break out your membership agreement and tell us what it says about soft ungroundings and hard ungroundings.

Oscar, I don't like to comment on situations without first hand knowledge but that's pretty bad. South Florida?

[Freeebird]

Randy, by definition (not the google one) maritime salvage can be a simple tow. It is a low order salvage. It does not rate a compensation based off of the value of a vessel or any uplifts for other factors.

Within the industry acts such as raising and dewatering vessels that have sank and refloating grounded vessels are referred to as salvage operations.

The Captain in question refloated a vessel that was aground. The master of that vessel allowed him to attach lift bags and deploy divers on his vessel.

You are implying that someone was wronged. I only assumed that you meant the vessels master. How was he wronged.

I'm seriously asking because I don't understand. What was the bill? Was it discussed beforehand?

Again, this wasn't a "Google" definition but one from a qualified and credited source. You seem to want to discount it for some reason and go off on tangents like dewatering and refloating which would clearly change things.

At this point, nobody knows anything beyond what the towboat Captain posted of the situation and what his photos clearly show. I don't know how more clear this could be. The master bought and paid for a membership that covered towing. That is a fact. In what way does his situation meet the standard of salvage, and why would the master agree that it was, and that the cost of such was not covered under his membership?

Was he or his boat in peril?

Yes, that's asking you to "guess", but a little logic goes a long way. By the way, you still haven't answered my previous questions. Are we having fun yet?

[Freeebird]

Randy, no I owned a couple of towing companies.

OK, I think I understand by one of your comments where the rub is now.

You are saying that the ungrounding should have been covered under his membership is that the point you are trying to get across?

And if that is your argument, break out your membership agreement and tell us what it says about soft ungroundings and hard ungroundings.

Oscar, I don't like to comment on situations without first hand knowledge but that's pretty bad. South Florida?

FYI, we were typing at the same time.

[Freeebird]

Randy, no I owned a couple of towing companies.

OK, I think I understand by one of your comments where the rub is now.

You are saying that the ungrounding should have been covered under his membership is that the point you are trying to get across?

And if that is your argument, break out your membership agreement and tell us what it says about soft ungroundings and hard ungroundings.

Oscar, I don't like to comment on situations without first hand knowledge but that's pretty bad. South Florida?

Let's address this again. Since you're in or have been in the business, what is your definition of a hard grounding?

I am reminded of a 53ED that I found perched on a sandbar outside the cove where I have property on the Tennessee River. I rode out to assist, but this boat was grounded to the point it had a severe list to starboard. I came back to the dock, got a bigger boat with twin engines, but it was an exercise in futility to assist him. With that, he called TowBoat US as he had a membership.

One guy in a single outboard showed up, and I stuck around to watch. After a few attempts at simply pulling it off that sandbar, he hooked a line to the midship cleat of that Hatt and proceeded to swing back and forth, using his propeller to free the keel of mud. It worked, and long story short, the Hatt guy was back on his way. No salvage situation there, but that boat wouldn't have moved until the next time the river flooded had it not been for that towboat. Maybe it's just a Florida thing.

[Capt Chad]

Randy, that wasn't TowBoat US. That was me. I was in a single engine Boston Whaler Guardian. I remember that now. He was somewhere past Loudon and before Long Island Marina seems like. Good Times.

He wasn't a member of the company I was affiliated with. I quoted him an hourly rate before I left my dock. If it had required a second boat, lift bags, etc. the price would have been higher. Back then we were at 250 an hour or so.

To simplify the situation. You're talking about the difference between covered and not covered.

I did this work here on the TN River and on the east coast in GA and SC. On the TN River most of our groundings were hard. Few were covered unless you were in an outboard or sterndrive boat where I could get the gear out of the mud and not risk breaking as much with our twin engine boat.

On the coast most were covered. Smaller fishing boats usually. Rounded the corner and hit the marsh or just got trapped by a 7 to 8' tide.

Our definition was something like, soft ungrounding had to be accomplished by a single vessel, the grounded vessel had to be touching the water, it had to have some movement to it and some other stipulations.

Like I said, some operators are better than others. I don't know the situation on FB. I don't know why they felt like they needed the bags. Maybe they had the gear in contact with something we can't see. Maybe the owner wanted to go the safe route and bag it out. Who knows.

[Pascal]

Yes salvage is about peril and risk to the salvor. There was no peril to the vessel here: calm conditions with light winds, no current, the boat is just sitting bow on a sandbar. No risk to the salvor. It was a soft grounding.

[Freeebird]

Randy, that wasn't TowBoat US. That was me. I was in a single engine Boston Whaler Guardian. I remember that now. He was somewhere past Loudon and before Long Island Marina seems like. Good Times.

He wasn't a member of the company I was affiliated with. I quoted him an hourly rate before I left my dock. If it had required a second boat, lift bags, etc. the price would have been higher. Back then we were at 250 an hour or so.

To simplify the situation. You're talking about the difference between covered and not covered.

I did this work here on the TN River and on the east coast in GA and SC. On the TN River most of our groundings were hard. Few were covered unless you were in an outboard or sterndrive boat where I could get the gear out of the mud and not risk breaking as much with our twin engine boat.

On the coast most were covered. Smaller fishing boats usually. Rounded the corner and hit the marsh or just got trapped by a 7 to 8' tide.

Our definition was something like, soft ungrounding had to be accomplished by a single vessel, the grounded vessel had to be touching the water, it had to have some movement to it and some other stipulations.

Like I said, some operators are better than others. I don't know the situation on FB. I don't know why they felt like they needed the bags. Maybe they had the gear in contact with something we can't see. Maybe the owner wanted to go the safe route and bag it out. Who knows.

Now THAT is funny... the first part about that being you, not the rest! LOL

Just another reminder of how small this world really is. I actually posted a thread about this incident and got a PM from a member who knew this guy. Turned out he had just bought the boat and was navigating from a nautical placemat he got at a local restaurant! LOL

Now that you've jarred my memory, I now remember the guy telling me about your bill and the fact you charged him X amount of money extra to push the bow against my dock after I drove it there on one engine! BTW, this was about a mile downstream of Long Island on the RDB. To get you and the rest of the crowd up to speed, this guy had lost an engine before he ran aground the night before. He claimed he drifted up on that sandbar, but that was total BS. He definitely powered his way onto it before it got the best of that one good engine. How ironic is it that he did that within a few hundred yards of the most famous single engine Hatt Captain on the planet?

I boarded his boat after you got it free, and I took it to my dock (my brother's actually) after telling him I could get it there on one engine with no problem. I did, you followed us, and I ended up taking him to a local NAPA to get whatever it was to get his other engine up and running again. Even loaned him my charts so he could get to the GOM without the need for additional placemats! LOL

He made good on his word to return them and apparently made the rest of the trip without issue, at least that I know of. Now I'm going to have to go back and see if I can find that thread, just for the hell of it.

As for the rest of your defense of this "salvage"... nah, never mind. I'm right, you're wrong, I'll just let it go at that.

[jim rosenthal]

I've read this thread x2 and still don't understand it. Randy, is the fraud that you think has occurred here, because the towing company has made a simple ungrounding into a salvage claim, where it ought not to be?