What Would You Do?

You are at your home marina and see another (new to the marina) boat coming back from an overnight cruise. You and another slip holder go to help him dock. He goes past his slip and tries to back up to the slip and in the process, he catches his bow rail on another boat's bow pulpit and takes a chip out of it (he has a thirty year old poorly maintained boat and the boat he hit is a 2015 trawler that just sold for $2.5K but hasn't been picked up yet).

We finally get him in his slip and he sends his buddy to look at the other boat. The buddy just glances and says "It's OK". The owner never looks himself and everyone gets off the boat and leaves.

I climb onto the new boat and look closely and there's an actual chip in the bow pulpit.

I checked with the marina manager and this guy never reported hitting the other boat.

What do you do in my position?

Is your assumption that the marina manager will not, or didn't report it to the trawler owner?

I'd report it to the harbormaster (sounds like maybe you already did?) Then I'd let the harbormaster take care of contacting the owner and sorting it out. I'd want someone to do the same thing if my boat were hit.

Richard

It sounds like you don't know who owns the boat that's been dinged, but the marina management does. Managing the marina is their job. I would make sure the manager has all the info and then leave the matter in his/her hands. If I were the owner of the boat that had been damaged, that's what I would hope and expect my neighbor to do.

IMHO, It makes no difference whether it is in a marina or a parking lot. It is "Hit and Run". It needs to be reported.....

I know that my marina manager would take action if it happened here (Southall Landings Marina, Hampton, VA). Still, when I saw the owner of the damaged boat I would tell him what I saw just in case something got lost in translation.

I would let the marina mgr take care of it but I would take several time dated photographs just in case they are needed.

WesK said:

I climb onto the new boat and look closely and there's an actual chip in the bow pulpit.

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You don't know for certain when or how the "chip" arrived.

Besides reporting it to the marina, I'd make an attempt to contact the owner directly and report only what I had actually witnessed and leave it at that.

Greetings,
Mr. H. "You don't know for certain when or how the "chip" arrived." Good point and agree on reporting the matter in any case.

As has already been mentioned you are a witness to a hit and run/ignore. Most owners would be glad of any assistance you could provide without setting foot on their boat. I witnessed this last august while the owner of the green boat was ashore walking his dog.



I provided him the photo the name and registration of the sailboat. I now have a new friend who has a berth for me in mystic next summer. Consider it paying forward the karma bank.

This has happened a few times at our marina over the 10 or so years we have been there. Everytime, the dockmaster was informed by whomever witnessed the hit. The dockmaster then contacted the owner of both boats (several boats in one instance). I'd absolutely report it and hope for the same if our boat were involved. In one instance, the guy who hit several boats and actually bent a steel loop attaching a dock to a piling tried to deny everything. Fortunately, there were several witnesses, all of whom spoke up with the dockmaster.

Hawgwash said:

You don't know for certain when or how the "chip" arrived.

Besides reporting it to the marina, I'd make an attempt to contact the owner directly and report only what I had actually witnessed and leave it at that.

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Agree except for the first para.
The boat was hit, there is a chip where it was hit, if the "chip" is fresh you do know, based on "balance of probabilities", how and when it was caused.

OK.

Yea... you should be careful. You don't know for sure that chip was caused by that hit (and kinda trespassed to look). You stand to put yourself in an awkward position between parties and with your fellow marina mates. I think you have reported it to management and it is time to step aside.

Ok, I would have called the police. A police report with your witness statement and photos is needed. Too many cases where the guilty owner tells his insurer he didn't do it, the insurer tells the other insurer that their client denies, then the insurer of the innocent owner pays for the repair and it reflects against him. Without a police report, the odds of the innocent party collecting from the guilty one are very slim in a situation where you've already seen the response of the guilty party. I don't know if alcohol was involved or not, but, if so, the police would also handle that aspect.

Greetings,
Mr. BB. To late for that now. Let the harbor master deal with it. Mr. TB has the best advice at this point IMO.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. BB. To late for that now. Let the harbor master deal with it. Mr. TB has the best advice at this point IMO.

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I meant what would I have done. Now, I would make sure the owner of the hit boat is told about it and who did it. I'd leave a note on his boat if I couldn't be sure otherwise he was informed. I didn't get a feeling he had confidence the harbormaster would follow through. Telling the harbormaster isn't enough unless you make sure the boat owner knows. I don't consider harbormaster the same as reporting to law enforcement. They're just an employee of the marina.

I know I sound skeptical, but I've known too many people to suffer losses in such situations.

Any witness or party to an incident like this should make a contemporaneous detailed note of the event. Very useful resolving any fact dispute months/years later. I`d bet this OP already has.

I have had exactly this situation twice in recent years, where when down working on my boat I have witnessed another vessel coming in or going out, hit and damage a berthed and unattended boat. In each case I advised the marina management, and fortunately, in each case, the 'offender' had notified them, but I still got a very grateful thanks from the affected owner next time they were down and saw me.

Ironically, one of those incidents was when a poor old fellow with an old blue & white timber boat, who clearly had no idea of how to control it, was going to take it for haul-out and anti-foul. To my horror, his technique, it one could call it that, was to just back up until he hit something, then the same going forwards, frantically winding the wheel and yanking the controls, until he was able to drive her out.

I then realised I had witnessed how it was that my boat ended up with a broken davit one time when I was interstate, and was called and advised of the damage by a neighbouring berth owner, who unfortunately did not see it happen, and just discovered it.

Sadly, that fellow was asked to leave the marina. I say sad, because he loved his old woody, but his wife hated it, so he would mainly just come and sit in it for hours on end, and virtually never moved it except for haul-out time, which was when this happened, so no wonder he did not know how to drive it.

I also felt very sorry for the son and grandchildren, who on the occasion I witnessed, had obviously come along to help, and were frantically calling out for him to stop each time he shot forwards or backwards, but the poor guy just had no idea, and his controls appeared all back to front even. It was a heart-wrenching experience watching helplessly, I can tell you, and I hated to have to report him, but clearly there was no alternative. I was relieved when I found out the son had already done so when able.

This P.C, crap make me want to throw up!
There is no question here what the hell is the matter with you people?
He needs to step up!

By golly, it has been a long winter.

I might say it differently but Island 15 is right. I`d welcome the "interference" of a neighbour if my boat got hit, including going aboard to check for damage.

What you should do? Simple, ask yourself what if it was my boat that got hit, what I would have liked people to do for my boat... You will have the answer.

Ouaip.

If it were a Hatteras poking it’s snout into a Califonian head, it would be something to write about but no sense to build a dossier over a nick in pulpit.

Observe and report, which OP did.

Peter B said:

Ironically, one of those incidents was when a poor old fellow with an old blue & white timber boat, who clearly had no idea of how to control it, was going to take it for haul-out and anti-foul. To my horror, his technique, it one could call it that, was to just back up until he hit something, then the same going forwards, frantically winding the wheel and yanking the controls, until he was able to drive her out.

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Peter B said:

Gee Pete, you should come over and said hello to me.

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Hawgwash said:

Observe and report, which OP did.

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He reported it to a third party though. Not law enforcement, not the owner of the victimized boat. At this point he doesn't know whether the owner will ever be told or not, or if told, how soon.

That's funny, but my reading of the thread is virtually everybody agreed that notifying the marina admin officer, harbour master, whoever is in charge, and who will have on record just whose boat was hit and by whom, as a perfectly reasonable way to manage the issue. I think involving police would be over the top, unless the offender clearly was going to make no attempt to address the situation, and I'm willing to bet in the vast majority of cases, the person who caused damage would have reported it anyway. What's the problem..?

I agree the harbormaster might be enough or not.

That can go the other way too.......if an investigative person does not do one right away...and get all possible eyewitness accounts....who knows what truelyvhappened.

A recently at a marina I was staying at, had an incident where a friend of mine was reported by a third party to the dockmaster thst he hit a boat. While my friend admitted to hitting one vessel, a third party said he hit a second boat that was impossible to see from where the guy was across the marina and on the opposite side of my friends boat.

The harbormaster said he was going to tell the police. Well nothing ever happened. Either nothing got passed along or the police wanted nothing to do with third and fourth party info.

Ultimately the person with the most interest in the game is the person with a damaged vessel.

I have nothing to add but was intrigued by how some posters used the term dockmaster and others used harbormaster. I suspect the same effect was intended but I looked up the respective terms and it does appear that the harbormaster is responsible for the enforcement of regulations in a port or harbor. Oddly, the term dockmaster seems to have no such responsibilities by definition. I do believe the incident should be reported to the harbormaster in terminology.

Donsan said:

I have nothing to add but was intrigued by how some posters used the term dockmaster and others used harbormaster. I suspect the same effect was intended but I looked up the respective terms and it does appear that the harbormaster is responsible for the enforcement of regulations in a port or harbor. Oddly, the term dockmaster seems to have no such responsibilities by definition. I do believe the incident should be reported to the harbormaster in terminology.

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I think the term harbormaster is being used much too loosely in the thread. Other than commercial ports there are very few harbormaster's by definition. Mostly they are dockmasters, albeit sometimes given the name of harbormaster but without such a legal standing.

WesK refers to a marina manager. That person holds no legal standing in terms of enforcement but is an employee of the marina. That's to my contention that while some marina managers may diligently follow up, reporting it to a marina manager is reporting it to a third party and well short of reporting it to the owner of the boat.

The OP never used the term "harbormaster."

If you saw someone hit another car in the Walmart parking lot would you feel you'd done enough by reporting it to the store manager?

I'm not criticizing WesK as he came here asking, but simply saying in my opinion telling the marina manager isn't enough to insure the owner of the boat gets the information and that they get it in such a form as to support a claim against the operator of the boat that hit them.

Taking it one step further. Let's take it to court. The marina manager's testimony would in many cases not even be admissible as it's hearsay. With a document written by the OP at the time of the event and a photo taken at that time, it might fit an exception.

Think if you're the insurer of the guilty party. Your client says he didn't cause any damage. A third party who did not see the accident says that someone else told him that your client did cause it. Are you going to pay? No.

I've seen this play out in parking lots too many times. The insurer of the victim just pays under comprehensive and doesn't even try to pursue it further. But it does show as a claim made by the victim and is subject to a deductible as well.