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Chuck Gould Chuck Gould is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 3,117
Default disposing of old fiberglass boat corpses

On Apr 23, 5:26�pm, wrote:
On Apr 21, 4:40 pm, Tim wrote:

I've got three old fiberglass boats that I've stripped out for parts.
right down to just about nothing but the hull. the ganks have been
removed. *about anything salvageable has bee.


Now I don't want to cut them up with a chansaw and have fiberglass
enbedded in my skin, and I don't want to burn them. Even out in the
country, it's pretty toxic stuff, and the smoke billows like crazy.


I'm thinking on geting my neighbors backhoe and burying them. *The
fiberglass probably won't rot or eons, but is there anything in the
chemestry of these things that can harm or pollute a water table? I
wish there was some practical way to re-cycle fiberglass, enough crap
goes to the local landfills as it is


thanks


AF chainsawed his, what a frekin mess, but it worked.


Whatever you do, don't scuttle them.

We had a marina operator down in Tacoma a few years ago who got caught
dragging a derelict boat out into Commencement Bay and opening the
seacocks (without any benefit of hose on the inboard side). The local
authorities were not the least bit amused with his attempt to build an
artificial reef. As it turned out, he had been apparently been getting
rid of unwanted boats from his marina in exactly this fashion for a
number of years. Not far from the resting place of the boat he got
caught scuttling, divers found a fair number of other hulls for which
he also claimed responsibility. In addition to some criminal charges,
the marina operator was reportedly slapped with some very expensive
charges for removing all of the boats from the bottom of the bay.

You don't have any idea how expensive it can be to raise and haul away
an old boat hull until you get a few dozen state employees, a private
contractor, EPA inspectors, etc all involved in the operation.
Wowzers. The accounting for our state derelict vessel program
demonstrates that an "official" dispositon of a scrapped boat often
runs into five figures (!)- for a boat with an actual value of darn
close to zero.

Best bet really is to don a "moon suit" and go after the beast with a
chain saw.

Note: Be careful about donating a scrap hull to anybody wanting to use
it on a playground, in a restaurant, etc. The first time somebody
slips, falls, and splits a lip on the edge of your old boat the
attorneys will start looking for anybody who ever had anything to do
with the boat. Odds are you wouldn't wind up with any liability in the
end- but you might have to pay an attorney $$$$ to defend you. We live
in litigous times.