Tugboat Sinking Off Ogunquit: What Maritime Law Says About Liability, Oil Spills, and Your Rights
You are reading this because a vessel went down off the southern Maine coast, and you want to know what the law actually says about who is responsible, what the environmental exposure means, and what rights a maritime worker or coastal property owner has when something like this happens. Maybe you crew a tug or a workboat out of Perkins Cove. Maybe you run a charter operation and your season was affected by a sheen on the water. Maybe you are a family member of someone who was aboard the towing vessel and you heard about the sinking secondhand and you are worried about what comes next. We are writing this page for you — to give you the law, the evidence clocks, the honest case-value assessment, and the playbook the other side is already running, so you can make decisions with your eyes open.
Here is what happened, in plain terms: On December 8, 2024, a 25-foot tugboat called the Georgie sank near Perkins Cove, just off the shore of Ogunquit, Maine. The tug was under tow — meaning another vessel was pulling it — and it was uncrewed. Nobody was aboard the Georgie when it went down. The vessel had an estimated 400 gallons of diesel fuel on board, according to a NOAA incident report. Nearly a year later, salvage crews refloated the vessel using inflatable lift bags. No injuries or fatalities have been reported in connection with the sinking or the salvage. The tug is owned by Patriot Marine Corp. of Winthrop, Massachusetts, which bought it in 2020. The towing vessel and its operator have not been publicly identified. That last fact — the unnamed towing party — is the single most important gap in this story, and it is the first target of any serious investigation.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a trial firm that handles maritime and offshore injury cases and catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death claims. This page is legal information, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We were not retained in connection with the Georgie sinking and we are not investigating that incident. What we are doing is giving you the full legal framework — the statutes, the deadlines, the evidence that is already dying, and the honest assessment of what a case like this is worth — so you understand the terrain before you make a single decision.
Who Is Liable When a Vessel Sinks Under Tow
When a tugboat sinks while being towed, maritime law creates at least three separate lines of liability, each with its own standard of fault and its own defendant. Understanding which line applies to which party is the difference between a case that moves and one that goes nowhere.
The first line runs to the towing vessel operator — the company and crew that had the Georgie on a line and were pulling it through coastal waters. General maritime law imposes a duty of reasonable care on the towing vessel and its crew. The decision to tow an uncrewed vessel with 400 gallons of fuel aboard in the coastal waters off Ogunquit, the tow configuration that was selected, the weather conditions that were assessed or ignored, and the monitoring of the tow during transit are all central liability questions. If the tow line parted because it was improperly rigged, if the tug took on water because the towing crew failed to monitor it, if the weather routing was negligent — each of these is a theory of negligent towage under general maritime law. The towing vessel operator is the primary defendant in any property-loss or environmental claim arising from this sinking, and the fact that this party has not been publicly identified is not an accident — it is a gap that formal discovery must fill.
The second line runs to the vessel owner — Patriot Marine Corp. As the owner of record, Patriot Marine bore a separate duty to maintain the Georgie in a seaworthy condition. If the sinking was caused by hull failure, inadequate bilge pumping capacity, or undetected structural deterioration that a reasonably maintained vessel would not have suffered, the owner’s own negligence is a separate theory of liability. But Patriot Marine also occupies another role in this incident, one that carries a different and more severe standard of liability: under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the vessel owner is the “responsible party” for the 400 gallons of diesel that entered navigable waters. That liability is strict — meaning it does not require proof of negligence at all.
The third line, more remote, would run to any marine surveyor who examined the Georgie before the tow and certified it as fit. If a pre-tow survey was conducted and the surveyor missed conditions that led to the sinking, that is professional negligence with its own defendant and its own coverage. Whether a survey was done is a fact we do not yet know — and it is a question that a preservation letter and a records demand must answer early.
OPA 90: The Environmental Liability That Follows the Fuel
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 imposes strict liability on the responsible party for oil discharges into navigable waters. The responsible party is the vessel owner — in this case, Patriot Marine Corp. Strict liability means the owner is liable for the costs and damages caused by the 400 gallons of diesel that went into the water regardless of fault. The owner cannot defend by saying “the towing company caused the sinking” or “we did not intend for this to happen.” The diesel is in the water; the owner is on the hook for the response.
OPA 90 authorizes recovery of removal costs and damages including injury to natural resources, loss of real or personal property, loss of subsistence use, lost revenues, and loss of profits resulting from the discharge. For a coastal town like Ogunquit, where the tourism economy depends on clean water and where Perkins Cove is a working harbor for charter boats, lobstermen, and pleasure craft, the economic loss from even a small diesel sheen can be real and measurable. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection holds state-level jurisdiction over any pollution impacting state waters or coastal resources, and NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration was involved, as indicated by the NOAA incident report.
Punitive damages are not available under OPA 90 itself. But punitive damages may be available under general maritime law if gross negligence is proven — and gross negligence in the decision to tow an uncrewed vessel with fuel aboard in coastal waters with strong tidal currents and shifting weather is a theory that the facts of this case may or may not support, depending on what the investigation reveals.
The near-year-long delay between the sinking on December 8, 2024, and the salvage recovery raises its own environmental question. Four hundred gallons of diesel sitting on the bottom of Perkins Cove for eleven months is not a benign scenario. Diesel degrades over time, but it does not degrade quickly enough to erase the exposure to a sensitive coastal ecosystem that is heavily trafficked by recreational and commercial users during the warmer months. Every month that the fuel sat on the bottom was a month of potential dissolved-phase contamination, a month of sheen risk during tidal exchange, and a month of cumulative exposure to the organisms and the people who use that water. The delay in recovery is itself an element of the environmental damage calculation.
The Limitation of Liability Act: The Defense the Owner Will Try
Here is the statute the vessel owner will likely invoke to try to cap what they owe:
The liability of the owner of a vessel for any claim, debt, or liability described in subsection (b) shall not exceed the value of the vessel and pending freight.
— 46 U.S.C. § 30523(a)
That is the Limitation of Liability Act, an 1851 federal statute that lets a vessel owner try to cap everything they owe at the post-casualty value of the vessel plus its pending freight. For a 25-foot tug that sank and sat on the bottom for eleven months, the post-casualty value may be close to zero. The owner’s strategy is simple: file a limitation proceeding in federal court, deposit the vessel’s value into the court’s registry, and try to force every claimant to split a pot that might be worth very little.
But the statute has a catch, and the catch is where the case is won or lost. Limitation applies only to claims arising “without the privity or knowledge of the owner.” If the owner knew — or participated in — the unseaworthy condition that caused the sinking, the limitation cap is defeated and the owner faces full liability. This is why the vessel maintenance records from Patriot Marine Corp. are the battleground. If the owner knew the hull was failing, knew the bilge pumps were inadequate, knew the vessel was not fit for an open-water tow and allowed it to be towed anyway, the limitation defense collapses and the full measure of damages is on the table.
The owner must file the limitation action within six months of receiving written notice of a claim. That filing can pull all claims into a single federal admiralty court proceeding and strip the jury. The practical consequence for any potential claimant is that the date written notice was given to the owner is a clock that starts running whether you know about it or not.
What Maritime Workers Need to Know: Jones Act, Maintenance and Cure, and Unseaworthiness
No injuries or fatalities have been reported in connection with the Georgie sinking. But if you are a maritime worker — a crew member on a towing vessel, a salvage diver, a deckhand on a workboat involved in recovery operations — and you are reading this because you were hurt in a similar situation, you need to understand the three-door problem that governs your remedy.
If you are a seaman — meaning you crew a vessel, you have a substantial connection to that vessel in navigation, and roughly 30 percent or more of your work time is spent aboard it — your remedy runs through the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104. The Jones Act lets you sue your employer in front of a jury for negligence, and it borrows the injured-railroad-worker rulebook, which means the employer can be on the hook even if your own carelessness played a part. The causation standard is featherweight: the employer is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury. Comparative fault reduces but never bars your recovery. You have three years from the date of injury to file.
You also have two no-fault remedies that run alongside the Jones Act. Maintenance and cure is a daily living allowance plus full medical expenses that the employer owes from the moment you are hurt in the ship’s service, regardless of who was at fault, until you reach maximum medical improvement. If the employer willfully and wantonly refuses to pay maintenance and cure, the Supreme Court held in 2009 that punitive damages are available. Unseaworthiness is a separate, no-fault warranty that the vessel and its appurtenances must be reasonably fit for their intended use. If a frayed cable, a missing guard, or an undermanned crew caused your injury, the owner is liable even without negligence — though punitive damages are not available on an unseaworthiness claim alone, as the Supreme Court confirmed in 2019.
If you are a longshore or harbor worker — you load, repair, or build vessels on the waterfront but you are not crew — your remedy runs through the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901–950. The LHWCA gives you no-fault compensation from your employer, and if a careless vessel (a different company) caused your harm, you have a separate negligence suit against that vessel under 33 U.S.C. § 905(b). You must give notice of injury within 30 days and file your claim within one year.
If a death occurs more than 3 nautical miles from shore, the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30302, controls and narrows recovery to pecuniary losses — the family cannot recover for grief or loss of companionship. A death inside 3 miles may allow broader state-law damages. The 3-mile line is outcome-determinative, and where a given death falls on it is the first question to answer.
For a deeper treatment of the offshore-injury framework, including how these three doors interact and how to avoid picking the wrong one, see our offshore injury and accident practice page.
Evidence That Is Already Dying: The Clock on the Tug Georgie’s Records
Every maritime case is an evidence-preservation emergency. The records that decide who was at fault, what the environmental exposure was, and what the vessel owner knew are on clocks — some short, some already expired, all running. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear.
The NOAA incident report is already completed and on file. It documents the initial incident details including the 400-gallon diesel quantity, the location, and NOAA’s assessment of environmental risk. It is obtainable through a Freedom of Information Act request, but processing can take weeks to months. File the request promptly — the report itself will not disappear, but the window to act on it before evidence degrades closes faster than the FOIA process moves.
The US Coast Guard marine casualty investigation records may contain the root-cause analysis of the sinking, the tow configuration details, witness statements from the towing vessel crew, and any deficiencies noted. USCG investigations can take six months to two years to complete. Formal FOIA requests should be filed promptly to preserve access. The Coast Guard operates under Sector Northern New England for the waters off Ogunquit. These records, once generated, are generally retained — but they are not produced until the investigation is complete, and the investigation timeline is not within your control.
The recovered vessel hull and machinery is now available for forensic marine survey after nearly a year of submersion. This is the single most time-sensitive piece of physical evidence. The vessel has been submerged for approximately eleven months, accelerating corrosion and degradation of the exact components — the hull, the bilge system, the through-hull fittings — that a forensic marine surveyor needs to examine to determine the sinking mechanism. A forensic marine surveyor should inspect the hull before any repairs or disposal. Every day the vessel sits in a yard without being surveyed, the evidence degrades. The hull tells the story of the sinking — where the water came in, whether it was a structural failure or an operational one — but only if someone reads that story before the salt and the time erase it.
The tow arrangement records and towing vessel logs identify the towing party, the terms of the tow, the crew qualifications, the weather routing decisions, and the monitoring of the tow during transit. Vessel logs and commercial tow records may be discarded under standard record-retention policies. Crew memories fade rapidly. A formal preservation demand should issue within weeks, not months. The towing vessel operator is unnamed in public reporting — and the first job of any investigation is to identify that party through the tow contract, the dispatch records, and the Coast Guard’s own investigation file.
The vessel maintenance and survey records from Patriot Marine Corp. establish the vessel’s condition before the tow, any known deficiencies, prior repairs, and whether the owner had knowledge of unseaworthy conditions. This is the record that defeats or supports a Limitation of Liability Act defense. If the owner knew the hull was bad and towed it anyway, limitation is defeated. If the owner can produce clean maintenance records showing no knowledge of the problem, limitation may hold. Small marine companies often have informal record-keeping — a handwritten log, a folder of receipts, a text message chain. The risk of loss or destruction increases with time, and the incentive to “lose” records increases with liability exposure.
The Ogunquit Fire Department photographs and social media posts document salvage conditions, the vessel state upon recovery, and environmental conditions at the scene over multiple days. Social media posts can be deleted or archived. Obtain through public records request promptly while the content remains accessible.
The Insurance Reality: Small Vessels, Thin Coverage
The tug Georgie is a small workboat-class vessel — 25 feet, 14 feet of beam, twin Cummins ISB-6.7 diesels rated at 600 horsepower. Its owner, Patriot Marine Corp. of Winthrop, Massachusetts, is a small marine services company. This is not a deep-water shipping conglomerate or a large towing operation with layered excess coverage towers. The insurance and asset profile of a small marine services company constrains collectibility regardless of how clear the liability picture becomes.
Federal financial responsibility requirements under OPA 90 apply to vessels of certain capacities, and a 25-foot tug with 400 gallons of diesel may or may not trigger the specific thresholds for mandatory financial responsibility demonstrations. The practical reality is that the available coverage may be modest — a primary hull and liability policy, perhaps a commercial general liability policy, and not much beyond that. The towing vessel operator’s coverage is the other piece of the tower, and since that party is unidentified, the coverage is unknown.
This is why identifying the towing vessel operator is not just a legal formality — it is the difference between a case with a viable recovery path and a case that runs into a thin policy on a small company with few assets. The tow contract, the dispatch records, and the Coast Guard investigation file are the documents that name the towing party, and a preservation letter that demands those records must go out before they are legally discarded.
For context: the firm has recovered $2M+ in a maritime back-injury settlement. That result was achieved in a different case, with different facts, a different defendant, and different coverage. We mention it not to promise what your case is worth but to show that maritime cases can carry real value when the coverage and the facts align. In a case like the Georgie sinking, the value depends entirely on what the investigation reveals about the towing party and the owner’s knowledge.
The Adjuster’s Playbook in Maritime Cases
Maritime insurance adjusters and vessel owner defense lawyers run a recognizable set of plays. Knowing them before they happen is the first defense.
Play 1: “It was just a property loss — nobody got hurt.” The adjuster minimizes the entire incident by pointing to the absence of personal injuries. The counter is that OPA 90 strict liability for the 400-gallon diesel discharge is independent of any personal injury claim, and the environmental response costs, natural resource damages, and lost revenues to affected coastal businesses are real, compensable damages under federal law. A sinking with no injuries is still a federal pollution incident with a strict-liability price tag.
Play 2: The Limitation of Liability Act filing. The vessel owner files a limitation proceeding in federal court, deposits the post-casualty value of the sunken tug — which may be negligible — and tries to force every claimant into a single proceeding to split a pot that is nearly empty. The counter is to defeat limitation by proving the owner had privity or knowledge of the unseaworthy condition. The maintenance records, the pre-tow communications, and the owner’s own inspection history are the weapons that break the cap. If the owner knew the vessel was not fit for an open-water tow and allowed it to be towed anyway, limitation fails and full liability is exposed.
Play 3: “The towing company is a separate entity — we are just the owner.” The vessel owner points at the unnamed towing operator and says the tow was the tower’s responsibility, not the owner’s. The counter is that OPA 90 strict liability runs to the owner regardless of who was at fault for the sinking, and the owner’s own duty to maintain a seaworthy vessel is a separate and independent theory of liability that does not disappear just because a towing company was also negligent. Both defendants can be liable, for different reasons, under different theories — and naming both is how you build a case that does not collapse when one defendant walks.
Play 4: The quick settlement offer with a release. If the environmental exposure is real and the owner’s limitation defense looks weak, a settlement check may arrive early — with a release printed on the back or attached to it, before the full extent of the environmental damage, the salvage costs, or the business losses are known. The counter is to never sign anything from an insurance company or a vessel owner without having the document reviewed by counsel. A release that covers “all claims arising from the incident” may extinguish OPA 90 claims, property claims, business-loss claims, and any future injury claims that surface later — all for a number that was calculated before the full scope was known.
How a Maritime Case Is Actually Built
Here is how a case like this is assembled, step by step, from the day someone calls to the day a demand number is built.
Week one: the preservation letter goes out. The day you call, letters go to the vessel owner, the towing company (once identified), the salvage contractors, and any third-party data vendors holding tow records or vessel telemetry. The letter demands that they freeze every record — the tow contract, the dispatch logs, the vessel maintenance file, the Coast Guard investigation file, the NOAA incident report, the hull condition survey, the Ogunquit Fire Department incident report, the social media posts documenting the salvage, and the physical vessel itself. Every one of these records is on a clock, and the preservation letter is the only thing that converts an automatic deletion into sanctionable destruction.
Weeks two through four: the records start coming in. The FOIA requests to NOAA and the Coast Guard are filed. The vessel maintenance records from Patriot Marine Corp. are demanded. The Ogunquit Fire Department’s photographs and incident reports are requested through the Maine public records process. The forensic marine surveyor is retained and dispatched to inspect the recovered hull before corrosion erases the evidence of the sinking mechanism.
Months two through six: the investigation deepens. The towing vessel operator is identified through the tow contract and the Coast Guard investigation file. The weather conditions on December 8, 2024, are reconstructed by a marine meteorologist. A naval architect evaluates the tow configuration and stability. The environmental response costs and natural resource damages are quantified. The business losses to affected coastal operations are documented.
Months six through twelve: the demand is built. The removal costs, the natural resource damages, the salvage costs, the vessel property loss, and any business interruption losses are aggregated. If injuries to crew members from the towing vessel or salvage operations have emerged, the Jones Act, maintenance and cure, and unseaworthiness claims introduce a separate damages track including medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, and potentially punitive damages for willful non-payment of maintenance and cure.
This is not a fast process. But every step depends on the first one — the preservation letter that goes out the day you call. Everything downstream is built on records that were frozen before they could be legally destroyed.
What to Do in the First 72 Hours
If you are a maritime worker who was injured during a towing or salvage operation, or a coastal business owner affected by a diesel discharge, here is the practical roadmap for the first 72 hours.
Medical first. If you were injured, get medical attention immediately — even if you think the injury is minor. Maritime injuries have a way of declaring themselves late: a shoulder strain becomes a torn rotator cuff, a bump on the head becomes a concussion that worsens over 48 hours. The EMS run sheet and the ER triage note are the earliest objective records of your injury, and they are the documents the defense will try to use against you if there is a gap between the incident and treatment. Go now. Maritime law’s maintenance and cure benefit runs from the moment you are hurt in the ship’s service — but only if the injury is documented.
Do not give a recorded statement. Within days, someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording built to be quoted against you. This is the standard insurance playbook in every injury case, maritime or otherwise. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurance company. Decline politely, get the caller’s name and company, and call a lawyer before you say another word.
Do not sign anything. A check may arrive fast, with a release attached, before the full extent of the environmental damage or your injuries is known. A release that covers “all claims” can extinguish your OPA 90 claim, your property claim, your business-loss claim, and any future injury claim — all for a number calculated before the real scope was understood. No document from an insurance company or a vessel owner should be signed without review by counsel.
Do not post on social media. Photographs of the vessel, the salvage, the conditions at the scene, or your injuries are evidence. They are also discoverable — the other side can and will subpoena your social media. Posting about the incident, your injuries, or your activities creates a record that can be used against you. Preserve the evidence by saving it, not by publishing it.
Document everything. Write down the names of every person who was present, the timeline of what happened, the weather conditions, the state of the vessel, and anything you observed. Photograph everything — the vessel, the conditions, the water, the equipment. Save every text message, every email, every dispatch record. The contemporary record is always stronger than the reconstructed one.
Call a maritime lawyer. The preservation letter, the FOIA requests, the forensic surveyor, and the identification of the towing party all need to start within days, not months. The evidence is dying on a clock, and the clock does not wait for you to feel ready. A consultation is free, it is confidential, and it costs you nothing unless we win your case. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
What a Case Like This Is Worth
Honesty about case value is not a concession — it is the foundation of trust. Here is the honest assessment.
For personal-injury purposes, the case value is effectively zero at this time. No injuries or deaths have been reported in connection with the Georgie sinking. The firm’s involvement would only become viable if injuries to crew members from the towing vessel or salvage operations emerge in subsequent reporting.
The commercial maritime property and environmental claims — vessel loss, salvage costs, OPA 90 response costs, natural resource damages, and business interruption to affected coastal operations — may carry value in the hundreds of thousands. But those are commercial matters, not personal-injury claims, and they are outside a personal-injury firm’s typical docket.
The vessel owner’s potential Limitation of Liability Act proceeding could further constrain recovery to the post-casualty value of a sunken 25-foot tug, which may be negligible. And the small-asset profile of Patriot Marine Corp. limits collectibility regardless of how clear the liability picture becomes. The $2M+ maritime back-injury settlement the firm has recovered was a different case, with a different defendant, different coverage, and different facts. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
If injuries to towing crew, salvage personnel, or bystanders subsequently emerge, the damages framework shifts entirely. A Jones Act seaman injury introduces a full tort damages track — past and future medical, lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, and potentially punitive damages for willful non-payment of maintenance and cure. A longshore worker injury runs through the LHWCA no-fault system plus a § 905(b) vessel-negligence suit. A death beyond 3 nautical miles triggers DOHSA’s pecuniary-loss-only framework. The mechanism of the harm determines the door, and the door determines the value.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if a tugboat sinks while being towed?
Yes — but who you sue and on what theory depends on your relationship to the incident. If you are the vessel owner, your claim runs against the towing vessel operator under a negligent-towage theory of general maritime law. If you are a coastal business affected by the diesel discharge, your claim runs against the vessel owner under OPA 90 for lost revenues and loss of profits. If you are a maritime worker injured during the towing or salvage operation, your claim runs through the Jones Act, the LHWCA, or general maritime law depending on your status. The key is identifying which door you qualify for, because the doors are mutually exclusive and picking the wrong one forfeits the case.
What is OPA 90 and how does it apply to a vessel sinking?
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 imposes strict liability on the responsible party — the vessel owner — for oil discharges into navigable waters. Strict liability means the owner is liable for removal costs and damages regardless of fault. The 400 gallons of diesel aboard the Georgie is a reportable quantity that triggers OPA 90 response obligations. The owner cannot defend by blaming the towing company. OPA 90 authorizes recovery of removal costs, injury to natural resources, loss of real or personal property, loss of subsistence use, lost revenues, and loss of profits. Punitive damages are not available under OPA 90 itself but may be available under general maritime law if gross negligence is proven.
Who is responsible when a vessel sinks under tow?
Two parties carry separate lines of liability. The towing vessel operator is responsible under general maritime law for the decision to tow, the tow configuration, the weather routing, and the monitoring of the tow. The vessel owner is responsible under general maritime law for maintaining the vessel in a seaworthy condition and is strictly liable under OPA 90 for the oil discharge. If a marine surveyor certified the vessel as fit for tow before the sinking and missed the condition that caused it, the surveyor may carry separate professional negligence liability. The towing vessel operator in the Georgie sinking has not been publicly identified — identifying that party is the first target of any investigation.
What is the Limitation of Liability Act and how does it work?
The Limitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30523, lets a vessel owner cap its liability at the post-casualty value of the vessel plus pending freight. For a sunken 25-foot tug, that value may be close to zero. The owner must file the limitation action within six months of receiving written notice of a claim. The catch is that limitation applies only if the loss occurred “without the privity or knowledge of the owner.” If the owner knew about the unseaworthy condition — a failing hull, inadequate bilge pumps, a vessel not fit for open-water tow — and allowed the tow to proceed anyway, the limitation cap is defeated and full liability is exposed. The vessel maintenance records are the battleground for defeating limitation.
If I was injured during a towing or salvage operation, what are my rights?
If you are a seaman — a crew member with a substantial connection to a vessel in navigation — you have three remedies: the Jones Act (negligence, against your employer, with a featherweight causation standard), maintenance and cure (no-fault daily living allowance plus medical expenses until maximum medical improvement), and unseaworthiness (no-fault warranty that the vessel was reasonably fit). If you are a longshore or harbor worker, you have LHWCA no-fault compensation from your employer plus a separate negligence suit against the vessel under § 905(b). You must give notice of injury within 30 days and file your claim within one year under the LHWCA. The Jones Act gives you three years. For a full treatment of these rights, see our guide to offshore and maritime injury law.
How long do I have to file a maritime claim?
The deadline depends on the claim. A Jones Act seaman injury claim must be filed within three years from the date the cause of action accrued, per 45 U.S.C. § 56. An LHWCA claim must be filed within one year of the injury, with notice of injury due within 30 days. A DOHSA wrongful-death claim for a death beyond 3 nautical miles must be brought within three years. State-law supplemental claims borrow Maine’s tort statute of limitations. The Limitation of Liability Act requires the owner to file within six months of receiving written notice of a claim. These are federal deadlines, and missing them kills the case regardless of how strong the facts are. The evidence-retention clocks — the six-month log retention, the one-year LHWCA notice window, the physical degradation of the vessel hull — run simultaneously and often faster than the legal deadline.
What evidence needs to be preserved after a vessel sinking?
Six categories of evidence are on clocks. First, the NOAA incident report — already on file but obtainable only through FOIA, which takes weeks to months. Second, the US Coast Guard investigation records — may take six months to two years to complete; FOIA requests must be filed promptly. Third, the recovered vessel hull — the single most time-sensitive piece of physical evidence; a forensic marine surveyor should inspect before any repairs or disposal, because eleven months of submersion has already accelerated corrosion and degradation. Fourth, the tow arrangement records and towing vessel logs — may be discarded under standard retention policies; crew memories fade rapidly; a preservation demand should issue within weeks. Fifth, the vessel maintenance and survey records from the owner — directly relevant to defeating a Limitation of Liability Act defense; small marine companies may have informal record-keeping with high risk of loss. Sixth, the Ogunquit Fire Department photographs and social media posts — may be deleted or archived; obtain through public records request promptly.
Is a small tugboat owner required to carry insurance?
There is no single, simple answer. OPA 90 requires vessels of certain capacities to demonstrate financial responsibility, and a 25-foot tug with 400 gallons of diesel may or may not trigger the specific thresholds. The practical reality is that small marine services companies like Patriot Marine Corp. typically carry modest coverage — a primary hull and liability policy, perhaps a commercial general liability policy — and are unlikely to carry the level of insurance typical of larger commercial towing or shipping operations. The towing vessel operator’s coverage is unknown because that party is unidentified. This constrains collectibility and is why identifying the towing company and its coverage is the first investigative priority. For context on how coverage towers work in commercial injury cases, including how a small primary policy can be supplemented by excess layers, see our workplace accident practice page.
What happens if the towing company is not identified?
The towing vessel operator is the primary defendant under any negligent-towage theory and is the party most likely to carry meaningful coverage. If the towing party is not identified, the case loses its strongest liability theory and its deepest potential coverage source. Identifying the towing party is accomplished through the tow contract, the dispatch records, the Coast Guard investigation file, and the vessel owner’s own communications. A preservation letter that demands the tow contract, the dispatch records, and any communications related to the tow arrangement is the mechanism that forces this identification. Without it, the case may be limited to claims against the vessel owner alone — a small company with potentially thin coverage and a Limitation of Liability Act defense.
Can I recover for environmental damage to coastal waters?
Under OPA 90, yes — if you are a party that suffered compensable damages. OPA 90 authorizes recovery of removal costs, injury to natural resources, loss of real or personal property, loss of subsistence use, lost revenues, and loss of profits resulting from the discharge. A charter boat operator whose season was affected by a diesel sheen, a lobsterman whose traps were contaminated, a coastal business that lost revenue because the cove was closed — each may have an OPA 90 claim. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has state-level jurisdiction over pollution impacting state waters or coastal resources, and NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration was involved in the initial assessment. The claim runs against the vessel owner as the responsible party, and it is strict liability — no proof of negligence is required.
Why Our Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court — the venue where maritime cases are heard. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, and he handles maritime and offshore injury cases under federal admiralty jurisdiction, working with local counsel and pro hac vice admission where required. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and the instinct to find the record, name the source, and tell the truth in plain language is the instinct that drives every case. He does not trust what the other side says — he trusts what the evidence proves. You can read more about Ralph’s background and credentials on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like the ones we now represent. He sat in the meetings where reserves were set, where IME doctors were selected, where surveillance was authorized, and where the decision to lowball a family was made. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If your family speaks Spanish at home, your case can be discussed in the language you actually think in. You can read more about Lupe’s background and the insurance-defense insight he brings on his attorney page.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% if the case resolves before trial and 40% if it goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And the phone is answered 24/7 by live staff — not an answering service. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911).
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full client consultations in Spanish, and our bilingual staff serves your family fully in either language.
If you or someone you love was injured in a maritime accident — whether aboard a tug, a workboat, a towing vessel, or during salvage operations — the evidence is dying on a clock and the other side is already building its defense. The preservation letter, the forensic survey, the FOIA requests, and the identification of the towing party all need to start within days. The call is free. The time is not.