Great vid. We (from New Zealand) visited Salt Spring Island Oct 2015. loved the scenery, the people we met, the food we ate. Well worth keeping this part of the Commonwealth pristine, otherwise it will become like so many other small islands that get polluted and ignored. BC need to develop a robust legislative framework that enables full recovery of salvage costs from the insurer or owner.

I can appreciate the fact too many is too many but abandoned boats add a lot of charm to local Gulf Island waters. They also can make great homes for marine life. I recall hearing about a giant homeless octopus that took up living in a car at Deception Pass Washington.

Thank you to you all giving your energy to help the natura.

I'm so proud of these guys, who do all this clean up oh behalf of the community , it is so cool ... they should become some reward in some way, for the good work they are doing ...

thanks guys

Recycling is the key. Metals,woods and plastics can be recycled but fibreglass is more tricky. I believe there are special sealed furnaces that use thermal pyrosis to reduce it to non toxic dust. This is mixed with ash and cement to make building blocks. Perhaps the metals value might offset the costs involved. Scrap wood as firewood and any good stuff reused. You have my admiration for a noble effort.

Nicely shot; great framing and editing. Nice work!

Shame When you are looking for a floating home and you see abandoned ones just rotting away like that, invokes an odd emotion, something between anger, sadness and envy.

You are doing a great job solving a real problem. Restoration takes money (very green), a site to work, tools, common sense and woodworking skills. All these are mostly lacking in those young enthusiasts who buy or acquire these old boats. The end result is that enthusiasm dissipates, the boat is abandoned and ends up on the beach and other have to clean up after them. This is also happening here on Saturna.

This is a long running ad for Veins of Life Watershed, not a visit to several abandoned boats in and around Salt Spring.

You talk about the sea of plastic, ever been in the military? I was in the Marine Detachment on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The garbage generated daily and dumped when out at sea is amazing. Try starting there.

Hi is there a law or you have to go by to retrieve or clam abandon boats here in BC and how long do they have to be abandoned for?

Great video!

the 2 best days of owning a boat....the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

I remember this "problem" back when I owned a boat. Every harbor has boats that some owner simply left (tied up). You cannot just take it even though everyone knows it is abandoned (laws & lawyering is incredible). The harbor authority has to "declare" them unowned before anyone can touch them (and even then nobody wants them (full of mold and dirt. Really nasty.) cannot just sink them, cannot trash them (materials are BAD). Genuine white elephant.

This was really cool to watch!! We have a place on gambier island and there's 4 abandoned ships in our bay. We had the expo 86 mcdonalds restaurant around the bay for a while too! That was creepy haha!

WHY NOT PUT AD IN PAPER SAYING FREE BOATS YOU MOVE

'lead' was here before we were. Suggest you worry less about 'abandoned' boats

Is that the Minnow?

Dang. When you said boats I thought you meant more than one. 2 abandoned boats is not a crisis. The boat you dismantled looks like it could have been a good fix project for someone.

taking care of your own backyard. i like that. good job.

I remember some of those boats when they were lived in....years ago...some of those those boats got around....wow, after watching this vid, im shocked at the disrespect of some ppl. The garbage island has grown in expediance since the asain earthquake. congrats to the all your hard work!

I would love to give $50-00 to take ownership of one of those boats if it was in reasonable order and bring it back to UK for restoration

Easy answer to this problem. Allow easy transfer of ownership to anyone that wants to salvage it and repair it, then fine the people that abandoned it whatever the cost of transport to wherever the new owner wants it.

good effort but that was heart breaking watching that old girl get torn apart.

This may be a stupic question, but if a boat is abandoned, why can't somebody just come along and take it for their own, assuming that the engine still works and they aare able to get it out of the way, and work on it elsewhere. Surely that would be an effective way of clearing up at least SOME of them

BTW the Pacific Gyre in which you speak of is not twice the twice of the US.... Its twice the size of Texas... The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N.[1] The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.

that second boat is a shame! a beautiful boat! :(

I would have loved doing a restoration on that old boat! I work in a yard here in the UK and spend my spare time and money restoring boats just like that one!!

Blessings; Tell the folks of Ganges, ancient clown sends his love. They are forever in his heart and he hopes his path leads back that way again.

It's so sad to see such wonderful boat's going to waste Im looking for a workable liveaboard boat to be my home for the rest of my life one that needs some love and sweat!!!

Do these vessels float why cant they be sold?

During Demolition you could separate the metals for Recycling as scrap; that'd be a good source of funds for the program.

it hurts me to watch this i thought they were going to restore them

We have this problem at our lake. However we don't have a daily tide as you do. We bag them, and float them to the shore in the spring, then during the winter pool (low tide) we smash them with a dozer, and haul them to the landfill.

i think they are neat to look at

I want a commercial (or any type) trawler to build a yacht out of...how about letting me know if you find one? also there is wooden boat rescue foundation, as a chance to find it a home before destroy a boat and send all the crap in to a land fill. I really wished yall had told folks about that boat.

Some don't understand . These boats are worthless . We need to clean up the garbage we leave behind . Yes I agree the owners should be contacted ...To clean it up .

Some can sometimes be restored. most times it is too expensive when they've sat for so long. The upper portion will look to be ok but the hulls bottom will be shot and not repairable .I believe therefore they become eyesores and hazards and best removed. Good project by aware and concerned people.

I'm looking for an abondoned boat exactly like the one demolished, to recycle into a floating home. I've held off because I've heard of horror stories about legal red-tape associated with adopting abandoned vessels.

That boat on the beach could be restored real easy, it looks in not bad nick. I can't believe someone wouldn't take that for free and restore it

That's awesome its people like this that make a difference...These boats are eyesores and pose a environmental hazard.....Great job!!!

These are the people who pull into a harbour throw down an anchor and live on social assistance. When they discover their pieces of garbage need repair, they cant afford the repairs and simply abandon the boats. They kicked them out of Rocky Point last year. That area has been cleaned up. Tighter restrictions are needed.

how come they don't pass the cost on to the last registered owner?

why dont they sell some of the Restoration able ones

If you were looking for a reaction to your video, look no further than the comments - WoW

What a shame about that big boat, I'd love a boat like that. Before they dumped it and left it to rot, of course.

Boat at 1:19 is salvage. Ill take it.

The owner of that boat is probably pissed!

place Ineed small report on the island salt

So am I to understand that a boat just like the "beautiful pretty" one on its side on "the beach" here in this video CANNOT be taken over by anyone LIKE ME and overhauled brought back to life?! be fore I comment further is that correct?? It could NOT have been taken over by anyone???

Yes, why destroy the boats?? As orthers have said, trace the owners before breaking the boats totally unnecessarily.....

Recycle, one man"s garbage, another man"s treasure.

Why is the owner not held responsible?

I cant believe they are allowing the destruction of perfectly good property, there are ways of reclaiming these boats and plenty of people looking for them, a better solution would be a web site and program put in place to hook people searching for these projects up with a location

They are destroying the relics of the future. :-(

@siamsurf indeed recycle it! , don''t rip it appart i agree with you .

its glass and pottery anythigh fired in a kiln that dosnt brake down thats history left behighnd

01:20 - the SS Minnow

I think this is dumb. Just scrap the steel, copper and aluminum then torch the rest. And if you find a large boat 50 foot or so just call a marine salvage company and tell them they can have it for free.

If someone had the $1000 or so costing to remove the boat to repurpose it for land use (building or display), everyone would be saving old boats! Everyone wants the boat, until it isnt delivered to their house for free.

@telemetry9 Most of these boats are very old thus the reason they are abandon and not sold. So many of the manufacturers don't exist any more and many of the environmental concerns of today did not exist when these boats were made. They also can not control what items people bring onto the boats and leave there before abandoning them. Many are filled with garbage before being abandoned.

man i would of like to have that boat

In the good 'ol days, you'd run her aground, bust out the hooch and burn her to the keelson. Have a clam bake/retirement party for her. With all the costs of getting rid of one now, the less endowed just scuttle them in deep water. Commencement Bay/ Puget Sound here has quite a few on the bottom.

Geez that 38 ft old cruiser is still in restorable condtion, i'd take that if it was free for sure

Why can't you burn these things? It would be less contamination by burning than if they were just left to pollute the environment! a controlled burn and then remove the part that doesn't burn!

Totally agree....you're not boat enthusuasts are you? What a shame to destroy the boat.

Yes. The owner is the responsible party!

Idiots are everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of poor people in America with no home of their own, and these people go about destroying boats. Any poor teenager or college kid in America spending all their paycheck on rent would love to have a desperate chance at getting an old boat, and renting a place at the dock and living out of a house boat. The same goes for military planes in graveyards, or abandoned trains, buses, and storage containers.

@porpoisefathom That boat was rotten to the bone, so not worth to be restored.

after the boats are gone, what are you going to cry about next

I guess it is fitting to have so many "TROLLS" on a Boat Video,...nasty, useless, negative and disgusting TROLLS,...always remember to never feed the TROLLS

Some times the obvious seem to elude even the best intended. Why not offer a salvage fee to people who want to get rid of their old boats?

just have a big beach barn fire just burn the sucker them just clean up the ashes and metal after

It can be reuse or recycle what a waste of intellect you just destroy jt and make a container full.... Whise up guy's what a shame !!!

Leave the old wooden boats alone. The restorable ones will one day be restored, the un-restorable ones are romantic follies.

seems like they could have stripped the engine etc, floated it out and sank it as a reef, put a bunch of those 'mud boats' together and you'd get a respectable sized reef for fish habitat, instead of filling a landfill. If they were really thinking about environmental impact, then this is better than land fill. Me, I'd have pulled off anything even remotely valuable and burned it in place. Cheers!

Get a bulldozer make a big pile and light it off - simple as that

guess i shouldnt bring another floating hotel, seems my lat one, didnt go well, bwahahaha

wish i could rescue th old girls

shoot i would love to help i need a free boat ill just haul one or two off i need a project to build a boat and restore them

I say bring a match and some marshmellows.

What a nice old boat lots of character. So why chop it up so it can be replaced with fiber glass one I don’t think so Why not put it on EBAY ill bye it Did he say safety shoes walleyes and flip flops

That was heart breaking watching that old girl get torn apart. What a lot of commentators here don't realize is just how much effort and money is required in maintaining a boat. And once its usable, the cost of fuel, the cost of moorage, the cost of hauling it out every couple of years to sand and reapply anti-fouling paint (prevents inevitable marine growth, usually copper based) etc. Its unfortunate to see them get abandoned like that.

You fill the hull with foam and let mother nature float it away for you? as in it just floats out to sea? Smacks of "not in my back yard."

'i actually live here! please don't tear down my house!'... i wondered why my father-in-law moved into a house! some idiot probably had his home towed away. its amazing how many really poor people salt spring island has without housing. many are not on any welfare, or have wealthy family. looks to me another movement to get them out of sight has begun. we have a boat in that harbor, touch it and i WILL sue you for costs and mental anguish!

Green is for the "clean" people, not for the poor.

LoL!!! Fiberglass lasts for hundreds of thousands of years! I laugh my but off!!! MAYBE 40 or 50 years. LOL LOL And lead base paint? You mean like was banned in 1978, boy that paint job really lasted.

i just dont understnad why someone would throw these beautiful boats away! sell them! so many people would love to get their paws on them, like me

Instead of abandoning your boat, why not donate boat to charity? www.charityboats.org/boatdonations.html

why cant you just find the former owner and make them clean up there mess

ya know, if yall tried to take a little less effort and get the boat foatabl, you could give it to one of the scout programs to sold , or you could sell it yor selves, and pay for some of those fees that you spend everytime you hual something to the land fill...where it be just as bad for the enviroment as it is when you found it. just remember that if you find a old trawler in as good shape as the boat you sis this vid on, then email me before you start cutting.

ye ever here of a can of gas an a match sooooo much easer

Why would someone abandon a good boat some of those you could easily have gotten 15000 for.

plastick does brake down it crumbles slow not in your time but the next three generations maybe

I don't understand why they didn't just dragged that boat off the beach?? And put it on a trailer and haul it away?? Would of been a lot less work.

I'm amazed at the ignorance of the armchair experts making comments. Too lazy to really find out the facts about the problems these boats create.Do nothing seems to be their moto. I wonder how far that philosophy takes one. Probably to the nearest bar.

yall have fucking promblems me and my dad rebuild boats and they would be cool to rebuild

i hear there all kinds of people in florida and californis abandoning allot of nice boats because they cant aford to pay the morage and insurance on them so they dump them and cut the hull # out of them so they cant be traced back to them for dumping them,, but it also makes it so someone who is willing to take care of it cant because they cant get it legal again,, the rich people in florida are throwing some beautifull boats away,,

You sound crazy. Threatening to sue? U.S.A! U.S.A!!