My Boat Has Run Aground. What Will Salvage Cost?
On 12 August 2022, a Beneteau Oceanis Clipper 321, a 32.6-foot cruising sailing yacht measuring 9.95 metres and displacing approximately 4.4 tonnes, ran aground in the bay of San Vito Lo Capo. Weather conditions had driven it into shallow water; its keel was embedded in sand a few metres from shore and it could no longer move under its own power. Following contact with the harbour authorities, a fishing vessel intervened and refloated it.
The story might have ended with a handshake and perhaps a bottle left on the quay. Instead, three years later, it ended before the Palermo Court.
The operator claimed an agreed fee of €10,000, of which €1,000 had already been paid. In Judgment No. 3761 of 2 October 2025, the Court found the alleged agreement on price unproven, but recognised the operation as genuine maritime salvage and awarded €3,500, taking account of the useful result, the short duration and the relatively limited risk faced by the salvor.
The issue is interesting because, in maritime law, someone who saves a boat is not necessarily doing a favour or providing an ordinary towing service.
Article 491 of the Italian Navigation Code provides that assistance and salvage producing an even partially useful result entitle the salvor, within the value of the property saved, not only to reimbursement of expenses and compensation for damage suffered, but also to a reward. Its assessment takes account of success, risk, effort and time, the danger to the boat and its value.
Distinguishing ordinary towage from salvage is therefore crucial. Losing engine power in a flat sea, half a mile from port and without any actual danger, is one thing; losing control downwind of rocks as the wind rises is another. Physically, in either case, someone may merely pass you a line. Legally, that line can have a very different value, because the law considers not just what the rescuer did, but what they prevented.
The 1989 London Salvage Convention, ratified by Italy through Law No. 129 of 1995, takes this logic further.
Imagine a €500,000 boat drifting towards rocks. The people are safe, but the boat is not. Someone with the necessary equipment arrives and says: “I can save it, but I want €100,000. Sign here.”
Can they do that? They can certainly propose it. It is much less certain that the contract will remain beyond challenge.
Article 7 of the Convention allows an agreement to be annulled or modified where it was entered into under undue influence or the influence of danger and its terms are inequitable. The same applies where the agreed payment is excessively high—or, significantly, excessively low—in relation to the services rendered.
Civil law is familiar with the underlying problem. Article 1448 of the Italian Civil Code governs rescission for disproportionate exchange, traditionally described as ultra dimidium, or beyond one half: financial need, exploitation by the other party, and a disparity exceeding half the value. If a boat is worth €100,000 and someone knowingly exploits its owner’s financial difficulties to buy it for €40,000, the threshold is exceeded. At €60,000, however unattractive the deal, that particular threshold is not crossed.
Article 1447 instead addresses contracts concluded on unfair terms because of a need, known to the other party, to save oneself or another from an immediate danger of serious personal harm.
In boat salvage, however, the owner may be extremely wealthy, perfectly clear-headed and in excellent health. It is merely their property that is rapidly approaching the rocks. Maritime law therefore provides its own rules, better suited to the circumstances: it does not require financial need, does not necessarily impose a one-half threshold, and looks directly at how danger affected the balance of the bargain.
Theory becomes very concrete in an even more recent judgment: Rome Court, No. 17176 of 9 December 2025.
A boat called Makaira, purchased a few days earlier for €650,000, left Olbia for Fiumicino. Around twenty nautical miles from its destination, the engines stopped. Recovery was arranged, and at 16:40 a fairly simple proposal arrived by WhatsApp: a fast vessel on site in around two hours and forty minutes, “operation price €8,000 plus VAT”. The skipper accepted.
The operation was carried out and the boat reached Fiumicino the following morning.
Then the bill changed scale.
The company argued that it had performed maritime salvage and sought a €95,000 reward plus €25,000 in expenses. A precautionary attachment of up to €130,000 had even been ordered and later replaced by security.
From €8,000 to €120,000: at that point, the distinction between “towage”, “assistance”, “salvage” and a “salvage contract” rapidly stops being a subject only for maritime-law enthusiasts.
The Court reconstructed the chronology and communications, giving decisive weight to the WhatsApp message. The agreement had been reached when the difficulty was already known; the operation’s price had been fixed at €8,000 plus VAT and accepted. Moreover, the salvage company had not invoked Article 7 of the Convention to argue that the fee had become inequitably low. The result: its claim for €95,000 plus expenses was dismissed, remuneration remained €8,000 plus VAT, and the €130,000 security was released.
A WhatsApp conversation had ended up being worth more than €100,000.
The case is interesting for another reason: insurance entered the picture. Makaira’s owner held a policy covering, among other things, “assistance and salvage expenses and remuneration” incurred to prevent or reduce losses arising from insured risks. That might seem enough. It was not.
On expert evidence, the Court found that the breakdown resulted not from an insured risk but from the crew’s handling of the fuel-transfer system. The indemnity claim against the insurer was therefore dismissed.
This may be the most useful part of the entire case. A policy can contain the word “salvage” without covering that particular salvage operation, because the first question is why it became necessary. Hull policies on the market may cover total loss, damage to the vessel and salvage expenses, but what really matters is the insured risk, exclusions, deductible and connection between the event and the cover.
Maritime salvage is an excellent example of how interesting law becomes when it stops being a collection of rules and meets the facts: a 32-foot boat embedded in sand at San Vito Lo Capo, a €650,000 yacht without engine power off Fiumicino, a WhatsApp message, a €120,000 demand, €130,000 in security and a policy that seemed to cover the risk but ultimately did not.
In all these cases, the initial question seems simple: how much does saving a boat cost?
The legal answer is much less intuitive. It depends on the actual danger, what the parties agreed and when, the value of the property saved, the salvor’s risk, the evidence of the operation and, where insurance exists, what the policy really provides.
When a boat is heading towards rocks, the priority is naturally to save it. But some problems can be avoided much earlier, by reading the insurance contract carefully while the sea is calm—and before signing it—instead of discovering its limits, exclusions and deductibles when the salvage bill has already arrived.
Paolo Fortina · Originally published on LinkedIn on 30 August 2026. Read the original
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