Boat's Last Owner

I often caution people on a tight budget that they don't want to be a boat's last owner. It can get very expensive.
Just read this article out of Daytona. Take special note to the last sentence.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. —

The nearly two dozens boats that have been abandoned in the Intracoastal Waterway in Daytona Beach are finally being removed.

Officials say one of the boats they lifted out of the water has actually been in the river for six years.

It spent three of those years on the bottom of the Intracoastal, creating a navigation hazard.

Officials, partnering with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, have overseen the removal of at least a dozen abandoned vessels. Some of the vessels have been actively leaking fuel.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri said other boats are floating criminal enterprises.

"Some of these boats had drug activities going on where people were taking little dinghies coming in there and doing drugs on the boats. Some of these people were trespassing in residents' yards," Capri said.

Boats were listing in the water, sinking in the water or already sunk.

In four cases, the contractor hired by the city had to use a crane on a barge to bring the boats out of the water. The removal and disposal cost about $160,000 and though the city is paying up front, the state will reimburse them.

Capri promised leaders they won't have to pay that money again.

"We're going to aggressively patrol the waterways and make sure this doesn't happen again, where we have boats that are being left behind," Capri said.

In some cases, the vessels were damaged in storms, including hurricanes, while in other cases owners just walked away.

Officials say they have identified all the boat owners and plan to go after them for the cost of removal, disposal and some owners may even face criminal charges.

That's when it sucks to be the guy who thought he unloaded it. One day I had troopers at my door asking if I owned a truck they found dumped in a state park. I'd sold it 5 years before and the buyer never registered it. Fortunately I turned in the plates, took the sticker and had a bill of sale.

Good that there's ways to keep people honest, but there's still the problem of what you do when a buyer can no longer be found. You're the last owner and that cheap boat just got expensive.

That would mean getting 50 states and a few countries to mandate insurance coverage and then enforce it. Not too likely. Can't even get that with cars, and then there's documented boats.

Isn't it more fair for people to pay to dispose of their own. DK how someone who maintains a million dollar vessels will feel about paying more taxes and fees to dispose of someone else's pick of junk.

Isn't that exactly the problem. The consequences are that you get a big bill if caught and the taxpayers get the bill if you don't or if you're responsible you get the big bill for disposal.

That's the problem and why boaters will balk at paying another tax/fee. It won't go toward this. It'll go into the general (slush) fund. Remember when lotteries were justified cause the money would go for education? No the real problem isn't the abandoned boats. That'll be taken care of how it always has. The real problem is on the person who buys the money pit, isn't the type to dump it on a shore line, and has to pay to get it gone. They thought they were getting into boating cheap.