Agencies and Sailboat Adrift on the Oakland-Alameda Estuary
Who does the USCG call when they see a boat adrift?
In a surprise to no one, except possibly the agencies responsible for patrolling and safeguarding the Oakland-Alameda Estuary, a boat that was reportedly anchored off Coast Guard Island has finally joined the swelling ranks of wrecks along the Oakland shoreline. After several months at anchor near the island, the boat dragged anchor and came adrift a week ago Saturday night and has been drifting, dragging, and aground in the Estuary ever since.
Michael Severson commented on our FB page, “The boat in the picture was anchored inside the buoys near Coast Guard Island. Either the storm or the owner moved it out into the middle of the channel last Thursday. On Sunday, she blew/drifted up into the shallows off Brooklyn Basin. She was still floating at high tide and [lay] over on her hull for four days. Yesterday [Friday] morning, she had swung around and grounded hard on the rocks. At 1545, after numerous patrols had raced by, a Coast Guard boat finally approached to within 50 yards and called out to the boat repeatedly over the loudspeaker. No appearance of anyone on deck.”
“This morning as high tide returned, she did not float, but had water over the rail laid over. She has now moved from a navigation hazard to an environmental catastrophe. Fingers will be pointed in all directions in a bureaucratic dance with no one taking responsibility. A sad commentary on our city, county, state and federal government and marine agencies.”
Another observer kept tabs on the abandoned boat’s track as she drifted around the Estuary. “This boat had been anchored off the west end of Coast Guard Island for several months. It pulled anchor and drifted into the center of the Estuary across from Encinal Yacht Club last Saturday night [a week ago]. It remained adrift with anchor still dragging in the center of the Estuary all day Sunday. After dark Sunday night, a contingent of Oakland firefighters ashore with several trucks and a vessel on the water with red lights appeared to move it closer to shore in the inlet at Brooklyn basin in front of the new apartment complex. The jib came unfurled sometime Sunday night in the wind and the boat went to shore Monday and grounded on her port side when the tide went out.
“Odds were she’d swing around and go starboard-side-down and fill with water with the next tidal cycle, but luckily that did not happen, and she remained afloat. She’s anchored far enough from shore to keep from going to ground at present. We’re not sure who her owner is, but there is no one on the vessel most of the time. The rigging is all broken and the starboard spreader is hanging down. Not sure what her fate will be at this point.”
If we understand the bureaucracies, with the boat firmly sunk on the shoreline, the Coast Guard is free of any responsibility. When the boat was afloat, the Coast Guard did see it, and tried to contact the boat without success. For whatever reason, they don’t see it as their responsibility and wouldn’t know what to do with an unoccupied boat adrift on the Estuary. Also, like every other concerned citizen around the Estuary, they don’t know whom to call or how to address the problem. It is now up to the Port and City of Oakland to dispose of this new wreck, which was afloat for several months and adrift for days. This will dramatically raise the cost of disposal.
Like this sailboat that was afloat yet adrift on the Estuary, the various government agencies appear to lack a “captain” with leadership and the ability to prevent this easily avoided environmental and economic disaster. With clear weather and flat seas on the protected Estuary, any agency only needed to impound and secure a bow and stern line to prevent this sinking. It’s more easily said than done, but given the many years of these recurring sinkings, one would think a solution would be available.
Nationwide, there remains a large volume of abandoned fiberglass boats that former owners have left behind in marinas and other places without any system or funding to solve the problem. Imagine you were the “good Samaritan” and decided to take the boat in tow. What would you do?
What would I do ? I’d put some varnish on the Teak .
In Southern California (San Diego) an effort by Dean West (current president of the CYBA) to work with marinas that have derelict boats in their highly desirable spaces and the county, to remove same…means new tax revenue for the county with new (read tax paying) boat owners looking for a slip. Also saving the ‘salvage’ costs mentioned in the article that we all pay for…
One would hope that a similar effort might be made on SF Bay to save these catastrophes from happening?
Who put the main up? Could the boat be sold to someone that wanted a project? it doesn’t seem to be covered by mold and algea like most abandoned boats. If not, $ could have been had trying to sell stuff off the boat if it were deemed abandoned (winches, chain, anchors, dinghy, radios, epirbs, bbqs, valves, spare parts, etc). Once stripped, the boat could be drained of environmental problems and towed to a safe place to sink it or the Navy/USCG could have gun practice on it what/ 50 or so miles offshore? With a good anchor and chain, it might make a good race marker for a yacht club as long as it stayed lit properly at night with a solar powered light (and bilge pump), etc. As it is, the County will probably pay $400K to have a contractor cut it up and bring it to a landfill, then raise everyone’s taxes to pay for that.
Roger – thanks for the comments. Those are all good ideas though there does not appear to be any person or agency that can legally do those things. The boat is ‘owned’ by someone and an ownership transfer of some sort needs to happen for a new entity to move forward with your ideas. We don’t fully understand all the hurdles but, so far, they appear to be insurmountable for the many agencies that might have sliver of responsibility to resolve the problem.
Why is it so difficult to find the owner? Is the vessel not registered? Is there no record of it paying for fuel, or a marina stay in the area, that would have the owner’s name attached?
Steven – it’s confounding but one question is, who would actually look for the owner? There doesn’t appear to be an agency with the responsibility to find them. Another common problem is many of the boats are unregistered so it may not be possible to find the ‘current owner.’ Beyond that, many of the owners of these boats do not have any money anyway. If you find them you could possibly fine them which would only add to the expenses they can already no longer afford.
It is frustrating but there needs to be some public policy solution that includes an organization or agency that takes the lead and has the funding. Another part of the solution would be to figure out how to find better housing solutions for those who currently find these boats as their best option amongst a selection of bad options. Sadly, this likely won’t happen before the next winter storms puts more boats on the rocks.
Well, hypothetically, let’s imagine that a government agency is empowered to aggressively go after boat owners to pay for incidents like this. Now , imagine that every time a boat that you sold years ago washes up on shore, this agency comes after you, since whoever you sold it to never reported their purchase. Would you feel this solves the problem?
Someday soon, and i hate saying this cuz i don’t want to give out ideas like this to the DMV, there may be a “disposal fee” added to each boat registration. You know, just like buying a TV at Best Buy you need to pay the e-waste fee; Only way more onerous. I’m only saying this cuz they MUST be thinking along these lines already. I hope we can come up with a solution before THAT becomes reality.
Insurance companies are refusing to insure boats over 50 yrs old. The marinas are refusing montage to boats without insurance! The problem will get worse before it gets better.
A major contributio to this problem is that DMV requires payemnt of all outstanding fees and fines before a repaired or refurbished boat can have a new owner. Abandoned but serviceable boats often have several years of unpaid DMV fees, which make it sadly uneconomic to purchase. So they remain abandoned until they sink. It’s a huge problem.
I sailed past this on Saturday afternoon. The owner, or someone presenting himself as the owner, was standing on shore kind of ineffectually fussing with some lines and shouting “I believe in miracles”.
Presumably he’s cured of that belief now.
Perhaps he’s lucky the Harbor Police didn’t see him so he still does believe. If it would have been me, I’m sure i’d still be in jail cuz i can’t cough up $400K
What about that schooner on the other side of the estuary a few hundred yards further south?
You’d think both of these boats would make great community or nonprofit projects.
What a waste.
Boy scouts, girl scouts, sea scouts, are they all full of projects???
Gotta be a simpler way to deal with some of this stuff.
As a past Oakland Estuary harbor master I can say that historically the USCG would respond by towing unattended vessels adrift to an empty slip at a near by marina and simply leave it as the nearest “Safe Harbor”. This of course transferred an unwanted responsibility and burden to the marina. Hopefully the USCG would at least contact the marina personnel so that a berth holder wouldn’t return from an outing to find a derelict in their slip.
Let’s be clear. There are several aspects to this problem. Foremost is that the laws against anchoring in the estuary are not being enforced by the Oakland Police Department. Once a boat is allowed to stay more will follow. Consider the comparison with the Alameda shoreline where no anchor-outs are tolerated as they are immediately confronted by the Alameda PD marine patrol.
The Oakland Estuary has gone through repeated cycles of expensive cleanups only to be reoccupied. This is an enforcement problem. The Port of Oakland is the 4th largest port the West Coast. Can you imagine Long Beach, Los Angeles or Seattle/Tacoma not having an effective marine patrol unit available 24/7? And yet Oakland fails completely in this responsibility. The consequences are all too clear.
The other underlying reality is the lack of a truly effective program to deal with end of life boats. Many are simply abandoned in marinas. This is an economic burden marinas cannot absorb. The California Division of Boating and Waterways SAVE program has nominal funds to address this issue, but they are only available to other government agencies, not directly to marinas. The necessary support to marinas is sporadic and insufficient. And thus boats are sold for a dollar feeding the anchor-out problem. There needs to be more funding and there needs to be a legislative change to allow marinas to apply for support directly. This would be money well spent for it is far less expensive to deal with these boats while they are still floating.
I also believe that there needs to be changes to the state’s harbor and navigation code to protect local law enforcement agencies from being sued for towing and disposing illegal anchor-outs. Oakland has been sued twice and unfortunately chose to settle rather than fighting in court. As a result every anchor-out, who may have gotten their boat for a dollar, will resist moving and instead just wait for their anticipated windfall.
Without fundamental changes this problem will only get worse. The public should not have this waterway desecrated as a marine junkyard.