Dear readers,

I once had a 20 dinghy cruiser made of wood. A beautiful boat, one that you build up a relationship with. But if you own a boat like that, you quickly learn that the real test doesn't begin on the water, but in the autumn. Then the question arises: where to put it?

Trailer boat: The road is not a winter storage facility

Winter mooring - that sounded easy at first. Some hall, some barn, some dry place will be found. In practice, it was more complicated. Many pitches had long been occupied by motorhomes. And as soon as I even mentioned the word "refit", everything was suddenly full. No sanding dust, no dirt, no hassle in the hall. Understandable from the operator's point of view, frustrating from the boat owner's.

I later found a place in a covered hall. Then it was all about electricity costs, agreements, access, who was allowed to do what and when. After that, the boat once stood in a farmer's barn, between agricultural machinery that was constantly being manoeuvred. In short: I know how annoying it can be to store a trailerable boat properly in winter.

But the roadside is not a solution for me.

When you buy a boat, you also buy responsibility

The case from DortmundThe case in which a trailer boat that had been parked for a long time was disposed of by the public order office because, according to the authorities, the owner could not be identified due to a missing licence plate number and was now expected to bear the disposal costs, struck a nerve with me. And apparently others too. The corresponding Facebook post triggered a flood of comments. There is a lot of indignation, but also a lot of everyday experience. One person wrote: "Anyone who buys one of these should also make sure they have the right parking space." Another asks: "And nobody complains about the caravans and motorhomes parked everywhere?"

I can generally understand why someone might not want to store a small boat in a warehouse at great expense if it can also be stored on a trailer. Especially with small, older plastic boats, where the weather may no longer play such a big role and where the sales value can hardly fall any lower, the temptation is great: tarpaulin over it, wedges under it, off to the side of the road. If there is no shortage of parking space, if nobody is obstructed and the neighbours accept it, this can actually be a simple solution.

But I don't want to accuse the owner of that. According to his statement the boat was only on the road for seven weeks.

However: It is a private object in the public space. Trailers without a towing vehicle may not be parked permanently in public traffic areas. Anyone who parks their boat there for a longer period of time must therefore expect consequences.

The scrap press must not be the most convenient solution

Nevertheless, I still have a bad feeling about this case. A wrongly parked boat is not automatically ownerless and certainly not rubbish. If there was actually no licence plate on the trailer, that makes things more difficult. But a trailer has a chassis number. The boat itself can carry clues. Perhaps the owner could have been identified. Or maybe not.

But whoever disposes of it should be sure that there really was no milder way. The city of Dortmund justifies its decision with excessive costs, on the one hand for temporary storage, but also for an auction. In the latter case, however, the owner would at least have had the chance to buy his boat back from the auctioneer. After all, boats are usually also about a feeling, a personal relationship with the object.

Perhaps that is the lesson to be learnt from this case: boat owners should not treat public space like their personal winter storage. But neither should authorities treat every sad boat like rubbish.

Because disposal is the hardest solution. A ticket is annoying. Towing is expensive. Storage is unpleasant. Scrapping is final.

Lars Bolle

Editor-in-chief watersports digital

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