What to do if somebody has squatted on your mooring ?

If somebody has long term squatted on your private mooring, what would you do ?

I will keep these details fairly generic … I’ve left my personal professional maintained mooring and gone into my local marina for the evening on passage for the Bank Holiday.

The harbourmaster say’s have you seen ‘X’ boat and I say yes, it was on the mooring ahead of mine which has been owned by another yacht for several years.

Apparently they left the marina after winter berthing and filling up with diesel; saying put it on my account, only to do a runner and pick up the private mooring a couple of miles up the road, and go back to France. The 35ft boat has no sails looms in dubious condition. The deep water mooring (in the Menai Straits) is in a tidal area amongst other private moorings with with no immediate anchoring.

Now let’s say it was my mooring (for the avoidance of doubt, it’s not but it makes me think what if it was at the end of the BH) and I’ve come back from a weekend sailing and find this boat squatted on my mooring; no owner details, no alternative moorings, unsuitable to have two boats rafted on the same mooring, no where I can anchor, no immediate marina because of the tidal constraints and I have a family I need to get home and work to return to….. what are my options ?

… looking for sensible advice no post Brexit sling the hook, cut the lines etc.

I’m just moving to a private mooring from a boatyard owned one so this is less relevant, but when we came back from 2 weeks away a few years ago there was an American boat on our boatyard mooring. We hailed him at about 10am and said, “that’s our mooring and we need to be on it now please”. He refused to move so we called the marina on the VHF. They told us that they had told him he couldn’t use it. When he eventually got off his backside and spoke to us he said his engine had failed and he couldn’t move. I offered to tow him to another mooring but he made excuses and disappeared back down below. I then called the boatyard again and they were pretty derogatory about him on the VHF, which presumably he could hear. Eventually, and after we passed very close to him about 5 times, he grumpily shrugged his shoulders and moved off with no grace or humility. Amazingly the engine had fixed itself. Utter tw4t. As is your French skipper. If they owe diesel money the marina should take the boat off the mooring and impound it. Warning - I am not a lawyer and I am definitely not a marine lawyer! Sadly there are self-interested tw4ts around. Luckily the minority rather than the majority.

Shuggy said:

I’m just moving to a private mooring from a boatyard owned one so this is less relevant, but when we came back from 2 weeks away a few years ago there was an American boat on our boatyard mooring. We hailed him at about 10am and said, “that’s our mooring and we need to be on it now please”. He refused to move so we called the marina on the VHF. They told us that they had told him he couldn’t use it. When he eventually got off his backside and spoke to us he said his engine had failed and he couldn’t move. I offered to tow him to another mooring but he made excuses and disappeared back down below. I then called the boatyard again and they were pretty derogatory about him on the VHF, which presumably he could hear. Eventually, and after we passed very close to him about 5 times, he grumpily shrugged his shoulders and moved off with no grace or humility. Amazingly the engine had fixed itself. Utter tw4t. As is your French skipper. If they owe diesel money the marina should take the boat off the mooring and impound it. Warning - I am not a lawyer and I am definitely not a marine lawyer! Sadly there are self-interested tw4ts around. Luckily the minority rather than the majority.

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Good advice but unfortunately the harbourmaster does not have the facilities to go through up the Menai Straits and tow the vessel back and impound it.

Unlike your squatter, this owner has not even stayed on the boat, just taken over the mooring and pissed off.

If for arguments sake… somebody towed it 100m and tied up to a nearby red cardinal and then made the coastguard aware of the hazard to shipping then I guess that would make it somebody’s else’s problem…. But not really a satisfactory solution.

What’s a red cardinal? …

Found it. Makes perfect sense now.

Here, in Oz, we have marine police and a bureaucratic State Maritime Authority. We would contact them and they would move the yacht to a police mooring. Both the Police and the State Maritime Authority have small runabouts which they use to monitor 'unusual' activity but if the vessel were large, say 40', they would employ a private operator to move the said vessel. Whether they charge the vessel owner - don't know.

There have been cases recently where vessels, seem, to have been abandoned, ferro hulled for example, and the last 2 had their rigs removed and then vessel and rig towed to a 'breaker'. Again I don't know how the economics work. If we own a vessel it needs to be registered and the registration is commonly tied to a Driving Licence - which provides an address (its a De Facto ID card, without being an ID card - so its difficult to disappear). (opening a bank account etc etc - needs a Passport or Driving Licence)

But. using someone else's mooring is illegal here.

So for us its a simple procedure and painless. In the meantime tell Water Police and use one of their moorings.

There are a few issues here.
Firstly, if the mooring is in a typical harbour, there is some sort of Harbour Authority.
Make it their problem.
Secondly, there is a difference between long term 'squatting' and 'finding your mooring occupied for a few hours'.
I wouldn't want to over react to someone borrowing my mooring because they've had an engine problem or something around the prop.

Summer 2022 we sailed from our home port of Falmouth widdershins around to our mooring in Plockton, only to find it occupied by a boat we'd not seen before. We picked up a visitor's mooring nearby and waited for a couple of days, but the owner didn't come back, and hadn't left a phone number to call on his wash-boards, so we asked around at the moorings association (PHCIC) and various residents, and discovered that he'd recently bought a (different) mooring in the harbour, but had parked his boat on ours for the last couple of months.

To cut the story short, after a few days the contractor who services moorings (who is super helpful) came by and said that he'd been contracted to inspect and service the offenders new mooring, and towed the boat away to its proper mooring, leaving us with lots of rusty chain and mess shacked to ours.

Fair enough, it cost us nothing, and didn't damage anything, so with patience these things can usually be resolved. What slightly peeved me was that I leave a note and QR code on my mooring which explicitly gives permission to use it with very few conditions, and my email address - but that was evidently too much trouble to pay attention to, or even to tell anyone that he'd picked up another mooring which wasn't his, or leave a contact number with anyone at all.

I think that, in the UK at least, the answer to the original question is first to find somewhere to disembark your (that is to say, the mooring owner’s) crew and to secure your boat.

Then take the issue up through the relevant harbour authority. If none such exists it may be necessary to explore civil legal process - for trespass.

None of this will produce an instant and complete solution and you may be inconvenienced for considerably longer than you would wish and also obliged to waste both time and money.

Taking any sort of gung-ho direct action is likely to put the mooring owner, in the wrong and risk various unwelcome suits, serving as a reminder of the truism that we all learned as children, namely that two wrongs don’t make a right.

Not that I'm suggesting anything, just pondering ..... if I was to find an unoccupied vessel floating unattached I would feel it incumbent upon me, if it were safe to do so, to take it under tow. I would then inform the coastguard of the situation and would hope they would arrange its recovery. I may even have a claim for salvage?

If this boat had done a moonlight flit from the harbour without paying for the diesel and ? mooring fees then there might be case for the police to get involved especially if there appeared to be "intent" when they scarpered.

Biggles Wader said:

If this boat had done a moonlight flit from the harbour without paying for the diesel and ? mooring fees then there might be case for the police to get involved especially if there appeared to be "intent" when they scarpered.

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That would basically be a civil debt, just and unpaid account initially. If the marina has given the bloke an account without a credit card number, a direct debit or some other means of getting their money, I'd be surprised.

Everywhere I've had a mooring, I've known local people who know what's going on and will help in the event of problems. Maybe it's different with moorings which are only offered to local people, sailing club members etc.

If you're from miles away and have some 'private' mooring in an unregulated area, then you have more risk of problems. Perhaps by paying some Harbour Dues, I get some value from Byelaws going back 200 years and some level of management.

Long time ago in the UK. I laid and maintained a mooring within a harbour area. Early spring someone I know put a boat they were looking after on my mooring. I asked him to move it. When my boat was launched I put it on the mooring alongside the smaller boat that was still there, and again asked that it was removed. A week later I towed the boat in to the harbour and secured it alongside the wall. Person looking after said boat claimed it had been damaged in the harbour. I pointed out it was damaging my boat while rolling in to it on the mooring. End of story.

More recently a community run marina I was involved with had a problem with someone berthing there without permission or paying dues, and was verbally abusive to the marina's administrator and chair person. We looked at various ways of resolving this including moving the vessel and anchoring it or putting it in to the harbour, but were advised we could be liable for any damage. The situation was resolved by taking the owner to the small claims court for the day rate visitor mooring fees. After the boats owner slagged the marina off in all the local pubs, having had to pay for berthing and legal costs we had no further problems with boats trying to berth for free.

B27 said:

That would basically be a civil debt, just and unpaid account initially.

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Maybe for the mooring fees, but I reckon that dishonest appropriation of the diesel happens when they scarper, and an intention to permanently deprive when they don't come back in a reasonable time.

I had the same problem with a private club mooring.
He would not shift until informed that one night it would be found adrift.
In the maniac straits I would quietly shift it and tie it to a tree, while wearing gloves.

Di you guys in the UK or Australia have any proof of ownership and what does ownership mean.

I purchased a walk on mooring some years ago, but the club now says I have exclusive use right and my written agreement says I can dispose of my right in a defined manor, and I can sublet my mooring in a specific manor. The club now say I cannot sell my rights and I cannot sublet my mooring but the club can and any rental will go to the club and not to me as was specified in my agreement.

To me it all depends on what the agreement says if there is one

rogerthebodger said:

Di you guys in the UK or Australia have any proof of ownership and what does ownership mean.

I purchased a walk on mooring some years ago, but the club now says I have exclusive use right and my written agreement says I can dispose of my right in a defined manor, and I can sublet my mooring in a specific manor. The club now say I cannot sell my rights and I cannot sublet my mooring but the club can and any rental will go to the club and not to me as was specified in my agreement.

To me it all depends on what the agreement says if there is one

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It will be in the fine print, best get your magnifying glass out.

Stemar said:

Maybe for the mooring fees, but I reckon that dishonest appropriation of the diesel happens when they scarper, and an intention to permanently deprive when they don't come back in a reasonable time.

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If they allow him to have the diesel 'on his account', it's just a civil debt like any other.
If they don't have adequate ID and contact details in place to recover the debt, more fool them.

If the non-payer had given false details or something that could be a criminal matter.

awol said:

Not that I'm suggesting anything, just pondering ..... if I was to find an unoccupied vessel floating unattached I would feel it incumbent upon me, if it were safe to do so, to take it under tow. I would then inform the coastguard of the situation and would hope they would arrange its recovery. I may even have a claim for salvage?

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That’s an imaginative and likely highly successful and ethical way of dealing with a boat you find abandoned on your mooring.

jdc said:

Summer 2022 we sailed from our home port of Falmouth widdershins around to our mooring in Plockton, only to find it occupied by a boat we'd not seen before. We picked up a visitor's mooring nearby and waited for a couple of days, but the owner didn't come back, and hadn't left a phone number to call on his wash-boards, so we asked around at the moorings association (PHCIC) and various residents, and discovered that he'd recently bought a (different) mooring in the harbour, but had parked his boat on ours for the last couple of months.

To cut the story short, after a few days the contractor who services moorings (who is super helpful) came by and said that he'd been contracted to inspect and service the offenders new mooring, and towed the boat away to its proper mooring, leaving us with lots of rusty chain and mess shacked to ours.

Fair enough, it cost us nothing, and didn't damage anything, so with patience these things can usually be resolved. What slightly peeved me was that I leave a note and QR code on my mooring which explicitly gives permission to use it with very few conditions, and my email address - but that was evidently too much trouble to pay attention to, or even to tell anyone that he'd picked up another mooring which wasn't his, or leave a contact number with anyone at all.

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You are very understanding....