What a headline in NYTimes! Not April Fools...

Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01boats.html?p... [link]

Boat owners are sandpapering over the names and filing off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable. Then they casually ditch the vessels in the middle of busy harbors, beach them at low tide on the banks of creeks or occasionally scuttle them outright.

Another link with pic. (Full article requires registering.) Farther down in article:

“We never needed a law before,” said Gary Santos, a Mount Pleasant councilman.

Not that having one is necessarily proving much of a deterrent. Mr. Santos took a spin on a friend’s motorboat the other day and saw a newly abandoned catamaran within seconds of leaving the dock.


Hmmm. Article implies that Charleston Craigslist is larger than usual with "dozens of boats for sale every day." Spin?