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The Florida Keys are one of the most difficult places in the United States to navigate a vessel through, even the most experienced Captains ground their vessels in the Florida Keys. The Florida Keys hold the only living coral reef in the continental United States.
Vessel accidents can damage the coral reefs, from things such as physical impacts from vessel grounding, anchor damage. Coral reefs & Sea grass beds are very sensitive to physical disturbance from vessel groundings. In the event that a vessel is grounded, responders must take care to avoid doing any more physical damage to coral and or sea grass, especially in the shallow water.
Salvage vessels that arrive to free the grounded vessel needs to prevent addition damage by using floating lines for towing operations, carefully deploying anchors, and removing the vessel using the same pathway that it created when it hit the reef or sea grass bed.
In the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary alone, roughly 600 known vessels groundings occur each year in coral reefs ecosystems. So the fact remains, that almost all boaters from the United States do not have the navigational skills to navigate the shallow waters of the Florida Keys. If you hit a reef or sea grass bed as approximately 600 people reportedly each year do. Costly fines are placed on the owner and or the loss of their vessel for damage done to the reef or sea grass, The owner can be fined up to 100,000 a day for being grounded in the Florida Keys.
Towing & Salvage Companies are referred to as "Pirates" in the Florida Keys because of so many years they have taken advantage of unskilled boaters running aground on the reefs and in the sanctuaries . This is the last known act of Piracy left in the United States.
The Towing company often is claiming salvage when in fact it is a SIMPLE TOW. A SIMPLE TOW, is defined as a line is tied off to their cleat of the vessel that is in distress, or the Towing company would tie it off and a pull off the reef in the way the boat impacted the reef or sea grass.
There are more non members of towing insurance, then there are members of Towing & Salvage insurance such as SEATOW & TOWBOATUS. Most acts of overcharging for a Tow or Salvage is mainly committed against people without insurance. Over charging for a salvage has been into the "thousands of dollar" on unskilled boaters navigating the coral reef in the Keys.
To the person that DOES NOT have boaters insurance will pay this cost out of pocket or a lien is put against the title of his vessel and is awarded to the Towing company. And that is why Towing Companies in the Keys are called pirates.
In most cases the boat owner pays all damages, even if the towing company has done some or most of the damage because of lack of evidence on the part of the owner in court.
This happen more than you would think, and when it comes to a vessel that is sinking, time is extremely crucial. That is why we at Coastal Visions International Inc. have divers equipped with underwater cameras, if filming is needed underwater we have a dive team that has the skills for cave,wreck penetration and deep water to be able to work in depths of 400ft.
Unfortunately most boating accidents that result in a death as the boat(s) go down. Most evidence is taken out to sea and lost forever, that's why time is the utmost importance on the water, to get evidence and footage before it's lost in ever changing condition. "The Ocean"
Winds and tides will change any evidence quickly, when the boat is re-floated as water is being pulled out by
large pumps, vital evidence is being destroyed. So filming is needed to start off underwater before any salvage has started.
If the owner of the vessel needed to prove SIMPLE TOW compare to what the Towing Company is claiming SALVAGE, all he would need is the video of the tow/salvage.
During March 2007 a local towing company claimed salvage on a simple tow, The Captain stated that he bumped his props on a soft bottom in the beginning of the pull, even though no damage was done, the Towing Company claimed salvage and the boaters insurance company paid over $4,000.00 dollars for the simple tow.
This is an old salvage trick, The tow company pull off fast to raise the bow and drop the props, then claims that their tow boat was in peril... Even though the Captain put his own tow boat in peril, it is all he needs to do to change a simple tow to a salvage.
With video of the salvage, it will show how the captain of the tow boat is doing the pull, and if the captain of the tow boat is at fault of putting his own vessel in peril to claim salvage on a simple tow, if the owner had video of this tow/salvage, he would have saved over 3,000.00 dollarsThe vessel owner can rely on Coastal Visions International from the onset of a potential lawsuit to obtain the advantage in fact gathering before a complaint is served or evidence begins to dissipate.
Having our vessels set up with camera's and underwater cameras, computers linked to satellite Internet connections on our vessels. We are able to upload any footage of "News Worthy" events in a matter of minutes to Local & International Media that is taken place on the water, with the same response time of the U.S.Coast Guard.
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