I have been asked by my yacht club to research Coast Guard vessel and operator licensing issues relating to our club’s activities. We conduct several charity auctions every year, and our members will sometimes donate time...
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?
February 4, 2010
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...
Protecting Your Rights in an Insurance Claim Investigation
January 22, 2010
Our boat suffered a “partial submersion” while we were under way during a short cruise a couple of months ago. We managed to make it back to the dock in the company of the Harbor Patrol and a commercial assist company,...
My husband and I own a sailboat and keep it in a marina in Los Angeles Harbor. We have a past due balance with our marina and my husband is in the process of filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I am not filing bankruptcy, but my...
Deposit Extortion: A Poorly Drafted Contract Leads to a Lawsuit
December 10, 2009
In our last installment of “Ask a Maritime Attorney,” we departed from our usual format and shared a legal “war story,” rather than answering a specific question. Our readers seemed to have some fun with that format,...