Theft or Salvage?

[wildcat45]

The brief story, a beached boat gets raided and stripped by thieves.
http://www.mouthofthetyne.com/2014/06/17/beached-b...

Looks like theft to me, but could an abandoned beached boat be fair game under salvage rules?

Or are those rules just a myth from popular culture?

[Pixelpeep]

wildcat45 said:

The brief story, a beached boat gets raided and stripped by thieves.
http://www.mouthofthetyne.com/2014/06/17/beached-b...

Looks like theft to me, but could an abandoned beached boat be fair game under salvage rules?

Or are those rules just a myth from popular culture?

It hadn't even been there 24 hours, doesn't really count as abandoned does it?

Theft. 100%.

[AngryPartsBloke]

You can't just salvage what you want willy nilly

https://www.gov.uk/wreck-and-salvage-law

[grumpy52]

We've had two incidents locally in the last 20 odd years , the first was a yacht washed up that one of the local bait diggers discovered in the very early hours .He "salvaged" a hand held VHF radio and a small outboard motor . He missed £100,000 in cash and 1/2 ton of drugs.
The second was large Rib inflatable found ashore in the local bay , again stuffed full of Colombian marching powder , customs were first to this one.

[wildcat45]

Thanks for the info.

[Martin4x4]

wildcat45 said:

The brief story, a beached boat gets raided and stripped by thieves.
http://www.mouthofthetyne.com/2014/06/17/beached-b...

Looks like theft to me, but could an abandoned beached boat be fair game under salvage rules?

Or are those rules just a myth from popular culture?

Simple theft.

Salvage doesn't mean what most people think it does. It doesn't allow the appropriation of (abandoned) property. If you salvage something recover it from jeopardy; then salvage allows you to claim from the owner or insurance company for a percentage of the value as compensation for the effort.

Edited by Martin4x4 on Wednesday 16th July 20:02

[Pixelpeep]

grumpy52 said:

We've had two incidents locally in the last 20 odd years , the first was a yacht washed up that one of the local bait diggers discovered in the very early hours .He "salvaged" a hand held VHF radio and a small outboard motor . He missed £100,000 in cash and 1/2 ton of drugs.
The second was large Rib inflatable found ashore in the local bay , again stuffed full of Colombian marching powder , customs were first to this one.

Where do you live ?

Thinking i might wanna come down for a visit, ill bring a van

[TooMany2cvs]

Remember this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSC_Napoli#Scavenging