Ask a Maritime Attorney - Page 25 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.

Rules of the Road apply to commercial, recreational vessels

August 30, 2015

My wife and I own boat that we keep at a marina in San Pedro. We are in the middle of a large port and, as such, we seem to encounter commercial traffic whenever we take the boat out. I usually operate under the policy of...

Is a ‘notice’ of a lien really a maritime lien?

August 14, 2015

I own a commercial vessel that I operate from a harbor in Southern California. I was recently notified that a company that worked on the boat over 10 years ago filed a notice of claim of lien with the Coast Guard. I did some...

Who is responsible when anchored boats collide?

August 1, 2015

The incident described by our reader is familiar to anyone who has tried to anchor in a crowded cove or harbor. One of the traditional cornerstones of anchoring etiquette requires a new arrival to a harbor to stay clear of...

Rules for operation of a vessel by a dealer, manufacturer

July 20, 2015

I am working with a partner to market a line of new boats that we are manufacturing in the United States. I recently took delivery of a “demo” boat here in California, and we are using the boat as a platform to introduce...

Rules to follow for every boat transaction

July 17, 2015

My 35-foot motoryacht has been listed for sale for almost a year and I finally have a solid offer. Unfortunately the buyer cannot qualify for conventional financing and he has asked me to loan him the funds for a year, at...