I always hate to get into these discussions but I can offer an example of what can lead to the idea that response companies are pirates. Disclosure: I owned the TowBoatUS operation in question below.
One Sunday in January, a few years ago, the office received a call from the main TowBoatUS dispatcher telling us that they had received a call from a guy who was aground in the Indian River (part of the AICW). He claimed to be a member but the dispatcher reported that the number was long expired. Dispatcher reported that response was at our sole discretion meaning we could refuse the job but if accepted we would have to be reimbursed by the client. We were provided with his cell number. My boat driver on duty took the job an called the distressed boater. He said he had just bought this 26' twin inboard cruiser and had his wife and two kids on board. He said he 'was aground on the left side of the Indian River (?) a couple of miles south of the hwy 520 bridge'. My guy said he would be there within the hour.
He actually was on site in about 40 minutes and the boat is nowhere in sight. He calls up the boater and he insists he is right there. He can't see the tow boat. Lots of confusion follows. Long story short we found him a couple of hours later on the Banana River about two miles south of the highway 524 bridge. The boat is a 'vintage' (read old piece of c--p) boat hard aground on caliche rock bottom. A winter front had come through and blown the water out. The wife and kids were cold and complaining. The closest we could get to him in our 2'6" draft boat was 500'. He was in less than 18" of water. My guy jumped in to the water and waded to the boat. Wife and kids wanted off so he carried each of them in turn to the tow boat. They didn't want to get their feet wet or walk on the rocks.
Talking with the owner our driver found out that that he had no compass, no gps and was using a 15 year old Shell road map for navigation. He also admitted that he didn't have insurance.
Our driver told the owner that we could not pull his boat 500' over a limestone bottom during the low wind driven tide and the best thing to do would be to drop his anchor and come ashore and wait a couple of days for the wind to back to the south and let the tide re-float the boat. Then we could tow it back to the boat ramp. However he insisted that we pull it off immediately. My operator should have left at that time but took it on his own to make an attempt. He put two lines together end to end, and walked it out to the boat. He then spent two hours tugging on the grounded vessel without success.
At this point our manager got involved. The boater insisted we did not have enough power and asked for bigger or better boats to make an attempt. Our manager explained the financial realities of how much he had spent already and how much it would cost to continue. He gave the manager his credit card number and asked us to bring in three more boats!!!! (Including the two Shamrock discussed in another thread).
So now we had four boats, with four captains on payroll. Our two big twin diesel boats and the two Shamrocks. At this point he is burning cash at a published rate of $1,000 per hour. His boat moved 20'.
In the end he run up a bill of just under $10k without moving his boat.
That was more than the value of his boat, I am sure.
At this point our manager calls me. And I go to the site the following day. His boat is sitting there leaned over, looking very forlorn in ankle deep water. I discussed it with the manager and we decided that by Wednesday the water would be back to about 4' depth and we would go get it with one boat and bring it in. I told our manager to discount the bill by 50% and charge the card the client had authorized. The manager called the client and told him what we planned to do. He called us pirates and told us not to touch his boat again. I tried multiple times to call him but he would not take my calls.
Sure enough, on Wednesday we went to the site and the boat was gone. And Visa told us the owner was disputing the charge and the payment was withheld.
We found out where the owner had taken the boat. It was in a marina. We went to look at it and found huge scrapes along the bottom, his propellers twisted to nothingness and the rudder stocks bent back. He must have hit that limestone reef at full speed to skid in for 500' and damage the boat like that. I despaired of ever seeing a penny for our work. Nevertheless I put a workmanship lien on the boat for the value of the invoice.
A couple of weeks later I received a call from the 'action reporter' of the Local Fox News station. In a very aggressive manner he accused me and the company of 'modern day piracy' and went on to accuse me of damaging this boat beyond repair citing $20,000 repair cost. He insisted that I pay the owner the $20k 'repair cost' to reimburse his 'damage incurred by our incompetence ' Instead of ducking the reporter, I was friendly and invited the reporter to come to our office where I would be glad to do an on-air interview. He showed up at our office next day with his camera man. Before the on air portion, I laid out the facts as I knew them, showed him our boats, warehouse and equipment and took him to the site of the grounding. I told him of my opinion of the irresponsible owner who could have injured his wife and kids, had zero safety equipment on the boat, was completely lost, did not have any current nav equipment, carried zero insurance and didn't even sign up for the very low cost tow assist program. I then got Adam Wheeler on the phone who gave a boatload of statistics on boats and lives saved by the TowBoatUS programs and how we were a large network able to respond to calls around the country. I also invited the reporter to come with me to visit the local USCG station where he met with the commander of the small boat unit who gave some more statistics and shoved some praise our way. He explained how the USCG does not carry out small boat towing and that although they are prepared to save lives, saving property is most often a very low priority and that we performed that very necessary service.
The reporter told us he would not go forward with his story and thanked us for our time. No story on the subject ever aired.
Now I can only imagine if this boater ever brought his story to his local politician. I doubt that they would make the time to check the veracity of the boaters allegations. Next thing is a public condemnation of assistance towers as pirates and various levels of scumbaggery.
I sold my franchise a while back. Please do not ask for more details as I have never named names in the past and don't intend to now. Except for TowBoatUS media representative Adam Wheeler. If you know him, he can recite many, many stories of this type. For me, I can tell you that assistance towing is not a get rich quick scheme. The guys who do it usually have a secondary source of income, except of course in the very big markets like Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa Bay. I had a nice tax right off for 9 of the 10 years I had the franchise. I had planned to be an owner operator after I retired from my major lines of work and that could have provided a nice supplemental income but I decided to go trawlering instead. [emoji41]
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