If you are not prepared for the possibility of having to accept a tow, it could cost you and your insurance company a lot of money!

An engine breakdown at sea on a motor cruiser or a dismasting on a yacht with a rope wrapped round the yachts propeller could involve us having to ask another boat owner to tow us to somewhere where our boat can be repaired. If the towing vessel is a motor cruiser or a yacht the owner is extremely unlikely to claim salvage; but the owner of a fishing boat following a bad few months of fishing may well see this as an opportunity to make a quick profit.

It is easy to dismiss this scenario as extremely unlikely, but the international law on salvage still exists and is as follows: Under maritime law a salvor of endangered property on navigable waters has the right to monetary payment from the owner of that property. This is an ancient law developed to encourage efforts to save property and to discourage theft by salvors. The act of salvage creates a right to a reward and a maritime lien attaches to the property that was salved.

A court or arbitrator normally determines the amount of the award to the salvor and this will depend on the time and effort expended by the salvor in bringing the vessel to a safe harbour, the value of the boat saved and the degree of danger to which the boat was exposed.

If a boat can be said to have been completely helpless and in danger of sinking or being wrecked because of bad weather and / or being blown onto a rocky coast then the salvors will be awarded most of the value of the boat.

In the event of a salvage claim the salvor will register his claim with the harbour master, in Portugal with the Capitania. It is then the duty of the Capitania to 'arrest' the vessel and probably chain and padlock it to a pontoon until the claim has been agreed and paid.

A claim for salvage might be avoided by making an agreement for a tow to an agreed destination for a generous fee, this agreement should if possible be in writing or if that is not possible at least in front of witnesses.

The amount that will have to be paid in a claim for salvage can be mitigated by your avoiding being apparently totally helpless. This can be achieved by having your own tow rope ready to pass to the towing vessel. Do NOT accept a rope from the towing vessel and do not allow any of the towing vessels crew on board your vessel to assist in securing your tow rope. In allowing them on board it will suggest that you were totally helpless, and their claim for a substantial portion of the value of your boat will be successful..

If your longest rope is the same length as your boat it will be totally useless as a tow rope. It needs to be at least four times the length of your boat, preferably longer.

A tow rope should be as thick as possible, not so much for strength but for weight so that the rope when towing your boat rarely pulls tight but instead hangs in a gradual curve so that it is pulling with its weight. It should also be made up as a 'bridle' which involves about 5/6ths of it being one length and the remaining 6th dividing into two slightly thinner lengths with spliced loops in each end to fit over your boat's two bow cleats, that way your boat will be towed in a straight line rather than zig zagging as it will if towed with a single line. There should also be a spliced loop in the towing end of the rope so that it can easily and quickly be fixed to the towing vessel.

Owners of very large and expensive vessels would be well advised to have on board 'Lloyd's Standard form of Salvage Agreement'. The claim for salvage will then be arbitrated by Lloyd's of London. Lloyds can be contacted on email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Fax: 00 44 20 7327 6827 or Tel: 00 44 20 7327 5408. To download a 'Lloyds Open Form' go to www.lloydsagency.com and for more information click on 'Salvage Arbitration Branch'.