For as long as marine insurance has been a factor in maritime commerce, there have been countless instructive articles, textbooks, legal opinions and court decisions that purport to guide or instruct both the laymen and expert in cases of marine salvage. While there are numerous precedents to guide interested parties in commercial salvage situations, the average yacht owner has access to only limited guidance for salvage situations. The burgeoning number of ocean going cruising boats coupled with the U.S. Coast Guard’s limitation of assistance to vessels in distress when there is little risk of personal injury or pollution has resulted in the emergence of a increasing number of yacht salvage companies with ethics and business practices that make some of history’s more infamous freebooters seem like paragons of virtue. These yacht salvage companies generally present themselves to the boating public as the good Samaritan service company to call when in need of a tow or mechanical assistance. Unfortunately that cheery façade masks a singleness of purpose when it comes to events that can be converted to pure marine salvage subject to the international protocols. It often falls upon the marine surveyor to play a pivotal role in the dealing with these complex situations and observers might find it interesting to know of the views of one embattled surveyor.

Admittedly the yacht salvor provides a vital service to the boating public but the value of their service is considered by some insurance professionals to be greatly overstated. As a marine surveyor and insurance adjuster associated with a firm that manages marine insurance affairs of a large number of cruising boats in the Caribbean and the US East Coast, I have been involved with several of the well known Antillean yacht salvors of the 1990’s. These salvors have been trained by practical experience to deal with insurers and vessel owners and have developed a professional shrewdness equal that found in some New York City cab drivers. The Caribbean’s combination of rocks, heavy weather and hurricanes coupled with a large number of insured cruising boats --- both privately owned and large charter fleets – operating within a bureaucracy of tightly controlled national waters has provided this group of admittedly competent marine technicians with a unique niche in the maritime community. When these freebooters deal with insurers and vessel owners they are tough and unprincipled traders sometimes giving the impression of having replaced the buccaneer’ cutlass with the high fixed price "no cure-no pay" salvage agreement. In proof of their negotiating skills, these salvors receive payment for their services within days of rendering salvage services while the insured parties sometimes measure their wait for claim payment in months and the poor surveyor has come to expect the payment of his fees only on a seasonal basis. Fortunately the Caribbean marine surveyor generally becomes involved very soon after a casualty occurs and has the competence to direct the operations toward pre-agreed bases rather than allowing the salvor the opportunity to claim open salvage. There also exist a tacit relationship between the few insurers providing yacht insurance in th4e Caribbean waters and the limited number of competent salvors --, as each party needs the other. In fact it is worth noting that the yacht salvage business would not exist in its current richly profitable state without the support of the marine insurance business.

Originally I didn’t question the prevailing opinion of many insurers that the Antillean yacht salvors were as a motley group as could be found in the hemisphere, but recent experience lead me to believe we have some pretty devious homegrown varieties right here in mainland USA waters.

The event that finally caused my change of opinion began with the voyage of a Beneteau 40 from Charleston, South Carolina to Palm Beach, Florida with a new owner and that most dangerous of all boating crews – a personal friend of the owner who once was a licensed captain. This crew managed to ground the vessel on the Atlantic side of the Canaveral National Seashore shortly before midnight one recent December night during light offshore winds and virtually unlimited visibility. The accidental grounding is clearly the type event for which marine insurance exists.

The distressed owner was roused from his bunk by the grounding and immediately sent out a call for assistance on the VHF radio. The U.S. Coast Guard arrived on the scene in short order and after finding no threat to life or limb of the crew, suggested that the owner obtain commercial assistance before the vessel was carried higher onto the ground by the surf and incoming tide.

The Cost Guard personnel facilitated the employment of one of the well known yacht towing firms which will be known in this article as Piranha Tow which promptly dispatched both a outboard powered salvage vessel and a pick up truck to the site of the grounding. One of the first questions posed to the distressed owner by the "salvage master" was about the existence of and amount of hull insurance policy on the boat.

When the owner confirmed that a insurance policy was in place, the "salvage master" presented a contract with the notation "no cure no pay pure salvage" for signature with much of the same aplomb that a Dutch salvor would present a Lloyds Open Form to the master of a loaded supertanker in distress. The embattled owner asked Piranha Tow about the cost of the services being provided and clearly understood that the maximum fee would be about $ 6000.

Once the contract was signed, the Beneteau was easily refloated, quickly removed from peril and towed to a local shipyard for dry-docking. The total time elapsed from the mobilization of the salvage vessel and pickup truck until the safe arrival of the imperiled vessel at the boat yard amounted to less than eight (8) hours for which the owner and the owner’s insurers were presented a "Salvage Bill" for $ 30,030 representing the salvors idea of twenty percent of the hull value of a Beneteau 40. A "Salvage Log" and the narrative version of the "Salvage Masters Observations" --the text of which – devoid of even a hint of subtlety or understatement – would do credit to any writer of adventure fiction accompanied the invoice.

When the now incredulous owner presented us with the salvage dossier, we immediately advised the salvor that while we considered the salvage to be concluded efficiently, the charge was considered outrageous for a variety of reasons none the less of which were the lack to anyone or anything involved in the operation, short time span required to remove the imperiled vessel, the lack of special skills needed to accomplish the removal, the likelihood tat the vessel was not in immediate peril in the light offshore winds and slowly eroding swells and the original understanding that a fee of $ 6,000 had been indicated by the onsite personnel. We believe that any reasonably competent boatman could have gotten the boat off the ground with only minimal outside assistance by setting an anchor to seaward and slowly working the vessel to deeper water. Alas -- that hopeful scenario was challenged, and the surveyor has to deal with the facts as they actual exist.

The salvor claimed that yacht salvage operations were subject to the guidelines set out in the 1989 International Salvage Convention, which was convened to deal with Blue Water salvage – certainly not a small fiberglass yacht that posed little or no risk to anyone or anything. The salvor cited the "criteria for fixing the reward" found in article 13 (1) of the Convention in justifying the salvage charge.

The salved value of the vessel and other property,

The skill and efforts of the salvors in preventing or minimizing damage to the environment,

The measure of success obtained by the salvors,

The nature and degree of danger,

The skill and efforts of the salvors in salving the vessel, other property and life,

The time used and expenses and losses incurred by the salvors,

The risk of liability and other risks run by the salvors or their equipment,

The promptness of the services rendered,

The availability and use of the vessels or other equipment intended for salvage operations,

The state of readiness and efficiency of the salvor’s equipment and the value thereof.

Piranha’s New York representative modestly gave his firm a rating of "7" on a scale of "1 (low) to 10 (high)" in all of the above categories when presenting his claim to the insurers. A more objective review would probably indicate a much lower rating for many of the categories and if there was a category for greed and bloodlust, the Piranhas of this world would certainly earn the coveted "10" rating.

After an interchange of letters and telephone calls with the Piranha Tow New York office in which Piranha used open threats of vessel seizure and attempts to generate sympathy by invoking the plight of the salvage boat operator’s autistic son, the salvage bill was revised downward to $ 19,890 in an effort by both parties to reach a settlement and to avoid legal action. It is noteworthy that some of our staff sincerely wanted to see this fee litigated in the hope that some sense of reason would influence further cases.

Two recent salvage operations which occurred earlier this winter in the Virgin islands to vessels larger than a Beneteau 40 involved difficult removal operations from rocky and dangerous shorelines, the sealing of extensive hull fractures, the refloating of an unstable vessel, a difficult towage in bad weather, special gear and equipment, more than 48 hours of continuous work and extensive pickling of machinery and gear resulted in negotiated salvage fees then thought by our firm to be outrageous but still less than half of that claimed by Piranha Tow. Such happenings present the Antillean salvors as more reasonable than someone else does on the planet – truly an Alice in Wonderland situation. (An interesting side note to the three salvage operations mentioned in this article is that all of these recent accidents occurred as a result of elementary navigation error made by licensed boat operators. The Virgin Island accidents were committed by sailing school instructors with an impressive array of qualifications and licenses in the presence of a cockpit of sailing students – making one sometimes wonder if the lunatics are running the asylum.)

Before the reader gets the idea that the surveyors are opposed to anyone but themselves making money out of marine causalities, let me state clearly that most enlightened surveyors agree that the greater risk deserves the greater reward and the higher skill deserves more payment. This case begs the question – does a five-hour operation utilizing minimal equipment and requiring no special skills deserve a financial return greater than the total cost for a quadruple heart bypass operation in a major hospital? If characters such a Piranha Tow preying on the unsuspecting boating public are not restrained or challenged, they might get the idea that they are justly entitled to their outrageous demands and the boating public will suffer in the end trough increased premiums or restricted coverage.

That a salvor in calm waters off of Daytona Beach, Florida can earn a fee proportionate to that of a real salvor attempting to save a loaded super tanker on the rocks of Brittany in wintertime is ridiculous. I agree with the British based claims director of one of the largest worldwide yacht insurers who suggests that there will be severe reckoning if these charlatans are not restrained. Since the yacht salvage business is directly dependent upon the yacht insurers for its very existence, a limitation of salvage payment to a certain percentage of insured hull value would effectively throttle some of the more outlandish practices. It might be possible for the principal yacht insurers to follow the practice of some segments of the commercial marine markets and enter into a master service contracts with the prominent yacht salvage companies that would require salvage fees payable by the insurers to be calculated on a predetermined impartial method. It might be helpful if the insured yacht owners through coinsurance could be required to participate in the negotiations with the salvors.

It is unreasonable to think that the current level of treatment and rewards for yacht salvage companies will persist into the next millennium. Now is the time to start a dialog with interested parties to arrive at an equitable basis of payment for yacht salvage services and still retain the independence of the yacht salvage companies and the integrity of the insurers.