Marbella town hall to finally remove and scrap sail boat stranded on San Pedro beach for several weeks

The sailing boat stranded on San Pedro Alcántara beach will be removed by land next week and taken to a municipal scrapyard according to Marbella’s councillor for Beaches, Diego López. The town hall "has been forced to take this measure after exhausting all the steps of a complex procedure, in which the owner has been notified on several occasions” but the town hall “has not received a positive response" López explained.

"After contacting the owner of the boat, who had already had a previous problem and had to tow the vessel to the Virgen del Carmen marina, he was informed that he needed to remove it from the shore as soon as possible, which was not the case. The owner was then formally requested to do so within seven days, but the notification was unsuccessful as the owner's address in Spain was not on record and he did not answer the telephone calls made by the town hall", explained the councillor.

After the first notification expired, the town hall issued another notification on 12 August, this time giving the owner three days to remove the boat. After failing again to get a response, the town hall, together with a specialised company approved by the Junta de Andalucía, is now obliged to remove the vessel.

An inspection of the vessel indicated that it cannot be refloated as it has a damaged hull, which is allowing water into the boat. As such it will be towed by land to the municipal site where it will be scrapped.

Last week local residents and visitors started a crowdfunding page to help the skipper with the cost of removing the boat, estimated at around 8,000 euros.

On 15 July, the rescue and lifeguard services informed the town hall that a sailing boat was about to run aground. According to witnesses who have spoken to SUR, the skipper of the boat is an elderly foreign man who ran into difficulties during strong winds.

There was an immediate response and offers of help to remove the boat but the owner is believed to have turned them down, instead leaving it stranded in the vicinity of the Nuevo Reino beach bar on San Pedro Alcántara beach.