Ask a Maritime Attorney - Page 22 of 66

David Weil has been the proud author of the “Ask a Maritime Attorney” column in The Southern California Log Newspaper and Sea Magazine since 2006, with over 300 installments of the column. We have provided links in this section to those articles, covering a wide range of topics of interest to the California maritime and boating communities.

Who’s at fault in a Shipping Lane collision?

April 22, 2016

I was recently a passenger aboard my brother in-law’s motoryacht during a pleasure trip to Catalina when we had a close encounter with a merchant ship. We were in fairly thick fog and we were steering a compass course from...

Shedding some light on the maritime title search process

April 8, 2016

I am buying a boat through a yacht broker and the sea trial and survey will be completed next week. In the interim I asked my broker and the documentation company to start the title search, but I quickly learned that the...

Who is on the hook for slip fees?

March 25, 2016

We rented a slip in a marina on a month to month basis for our old boat. We paid our slip fees on time every month until we sold the boat a few months ago. The new owner took delivery at our old slip. He said that he had a...

Yacht clubs and the ‘Assumption of Risk’

March 13, 2016

I am chairman of the race committee at a yacht club in California and we have spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about the possible liability of the club in the event of an accident during a race. Most yacht...

Who needs a U.S. Coast Guard License?

February 26, 2016

Does an individual who is selected and compensated by someone to skipper their bareboat charter sailboat need a Coast Guard license? The compensation in this case did not involve a cash payment and it consisted of only...