When does a tow cost $47,000?

RickJ6956

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Jul 18, 2009
Messages
349
... When it's claimed by the tow boat as salvage and the stranded boat is valued at $150,000. The owners were on the boat as it was towed to the nearest marina.

In another incident, two fishermen ran out of gas. They called a local tow service and were presented with a bill for $5,000. (The boat was valued at $15,000.) The tow took only 15 minutes because both boats were within a couple hundred yards of the launch.

Maritime law allows salvors to place liens on the vessels they rescue. In both of the above cases the owners did not ask if the tow boat planned to provide basic assistance, or if it was there to claim salvage rights.

In the former, the owner took the towing service to court and lost. In the latter, the owner wrote a check for $1,000 and it was accepted.

The fine line that allows salvors to claim salvage rights is whether or not there is an "imminent peril." This could mean something as simple as, in the first case above, the boat's engine failing in a river upstream from a bridge.
 

45Auto

Commander
Joined
May 31, 2002
Messages
2,842
Re: When does a tow cost $47,000?

We had a Space Shuttle External Tank transporter like the one below lose power off the coast of Florida about 15 years ago. Don't know how much the tanker that took it in tow finally settled for, but it wasn't cheap!

Pegasus_barge_with_et.jpg


Shuttle Tank Salvage May Cost Taxpayers Plenty
May 17, 1995|By SETH BORENSTEIN The Orlando Sentinel

When a space shuttle external fuel tank was stranded in Tropical Storm Gordon's rough seas six months ago, NASA needed help. A nearby ship came to the rescue, but it didn't come cheap.

Now the bill for the rescue is coming due, and it could cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

It puts NASA in the midst of another storm, a legal one that is churning in federal court in New Orleans. A three-headed civil suit mixes late 20th century technology with a 19th century legal doctrine called the law of the seas, which says that anyone who rescues a ship deserves a hefty portion of the cargo as a reward.

The tanker company that rescued the external tank is claiming salvage rights for up to half the value of the NASA tank and the tugboat pulling it.
Depending on whose figures you believe, that NASA tank is worth either $51 million or $19 million. Half of that would be $25.5 million or $9.5 million.


http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1995-05-17/news/9505170014_1_nasa-tank-tug-coast-guard
 
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