About the data

What a pin means

Each pin is one report from a member of the public. Someone saw a boat that looked abandoned, photographed it and filed a report. Nobody has checked the reports for this site.

A pin does not mean a boat is legally abandoned. Only the authorities, such as a harbor agency, the State Lands Commission or law enforcement, can decide that. The boat may also have been moved, sold or removed since the sighting.

Where the reports come from

The reports come from the BoatUS Foundation's national abandoned and derelict vessel database, which collects reports through the MyCoast app and website. This site shows the California reports from that database.

The data is imported by hand, so it can be out of date. The date of the latest import is at the bottom of each page.

What each report shows

• The date the reporter photographed the boat. This can be months before the report was filed.
• The nearest town and the county.
• The condition, length range and hull material the reporter chose from a list.
• Any hazards the reporter ticked: navigation, pollution, habitat damage or public safety.
• A link to the full report on MyCoast.

Pins are red if the sighting was in the last 6 months and white with a grey ring if it was older. The location is the one the reporter gave, rounded to about 10 meters.

What is left out on purpose

Boat names, registration numbers, hull ID numbers, the reporter's free-text notes, photos, and anything about the people who filed the report or own the boat never reach this site. The full report on MyCoast shows whatever its owner chose to make public there.

A few submissions are removed because they are clearly tests, for example a report where every answer says "unknown" and the condition says "test".

Possible duplicates

When two reports were photographed on the same day, within about 1 km of each other, and describe the same condition, length and hull, they may be the same boat reported twice. They are labeled "Possible duplicate" and counted once in the "likely different boats" figure. Both pins stay on the map, because only a person can tell.

What is not here

• Reports that were never filed on MyCoast. Harbor agencies, the State Lands Commission and local governments keep their own lists, and this site does not have them.
• Whether a boat has been removed. The export used here has no removal status, so an old pin may show a boat that is long gone.
• A complete count. Ten reports are not ten boats in California. They show where people reported boats, not where boats are.

Waterways and grants

The dashed circles on the map mark waterways with active cleanups, collected by hand from public documents. A circle is an approximate area, not a vessel location. Select a waterway name on the map to read the notes and sources. The same notes are on the Data page.

The grant figures come from California State Parks news releases about the Division of Boating and Waterways' SAVE program. Each document counts something different, so read the source before comparing numbers.

If you see a boat

You can report a vessel on MyCoast. Please do not board, move or tamper with it.

If a boat is leaking fuel or oil, call the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802.

Corrections

If a report is wrong, or a boat has been removed, update or flag it on MyCoast through the link in the report. This site picks up changes the next time the data is imported.

Credits

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, and the street map tiles come from the OpenStreetMap servers. The map uses Leaflet and Leaflet.markercluster. The typeface is Public Sans.

This is an independent project. It is not run or endorsed by the BoatUS Foundation, NOAA or any government agency.