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The Hindu is scheduled to return to Provincetown next month despite claims that its captain, Kevin Foley, removed the boat illegally from Key West, where it had been berthed this past winter. |
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Hindu sails home under fire
PROVINCETOWN — A Wild West sea saga has erupted over ownership of the schooner Hindu, a charter sailboat that has operated out of the harbor here for decades, leading to lawsuits, evictions and, last Friday, Capt. Kevin Foley being accused of stealing the boat from its marina in Key West.
Foley, who spent three years renovating the schooner, spoke on a cell phone from an undisclosed marina in Florida Monday, where he is preparing the schooner for its return trip to Provincetown. He said a stand-off between his crew and Sime Dijan, the financier who loaned Foley $265,000 to restore the boat, took place over three hours Friday afternoon, shortly after Foley received a judge’s decision lifting an injunction that had kept him off the Hindu for the past seven weeks. Foley said he showed up to take possession of the boat Friday and found Dijan on board.
”He wouldn’t get off the boat. He had a hammer and was swinging it at me, saying, ‘It’s my boat, get off my boat,’” Foley said, a charge that Dijan dismissed as “garbage.”
Foley retreated to the bow of the boat and stayed there while friends brought food and clothing for him and his crew. Dijan said he called the local police but they wouldn’t intercede because of the judge’s ruling.
“I walked away to go to the bathroom and he took off,” Dijan said about Foley. “He stole my boat. I did not give him the authority to move it.”
Who actually owns the boat is apparently the question of dueling lawsuits the two men have filed against each other. According to Foley’s attorney, Ed Patten from Zisson & Veara, the boat is owned by Hindu of Provincetown Inc., a corporation consisting of two shareholders; Foley’s wife, Frances Endico, and Margaret Gifford, the widow of John Bennett, the previous owner who died in the Hindu’s hold after a heart attack. However, shortly after Foley began restoring the schooner, he met Dijan, who initially invested $65,000 in the restoration, then another $200,000.
Dijan in an interview Monday said Foley never made payments on the loans and that to protect his investment, Dijan wanted Hindu of Provincetown to sign over its ownership rights. According to Patten, that never happened. However, again according to Patten, Dijan took out a $500,000 mortgage on the boat by telling a credit union that he was the owner.
“Our claim is that [Dijan] has no ownership interest in the boat nor did he have any authority to make any representation to a lending institution,” Patten said.
“I used all my cash on the boat [restoration] and I needed to get some back,” Dijan said on Monday, acknowledging he did take out a $500,000 loan against the Hindu.
A Florida judge ruled on May 15 that Dijan was the owner and could evict Foley and his crew from the Hindu, which he did at approximately 9 p.m. that night. However, a Massachusetts judge ruled on June 5 that Dijan couldn’t represent himself as owner. And last Friday, during a hearing on Dijan’s lawsuit in Key West, another judge lifted the injunction keeping Foley off the boat. Later that day, Foley slipped off the mooring lines when Dijan went to the bathroom and motored away to cheers, according to Foley, from dozens of regulars at a bar the Hindu had been berthed in front of who had been following the story.
“I thought, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ We just backed out. There were tons of people coming out of the bar to cheer us on. One of the other boats was blowing its horn,” Foley said.
The trip back to Provincetown will take a week to 10 days, and the Hindu is scheduled to return to MacMillan Pier sometime in early July. Foley said he would continue to operate the schooner as a day charter this summer. He still plans to return to Key West over the winter, where the boat had a successful winter charter operation.
Dijan vowed to continue his lawsuit. He said he has been stuck with between $30,000-$40,000 in bills for the boat in addition to the $265,000 he has already invested. Last April he forbade Foley from returning the Hindu to Provincetown this summer, saying the boat could make more money continuing its charter operation in Key West.
In addition, the Hindu was fully booked for the upcoming July 4th weekend, he said, and now those Key West passengers are stranded.
“It’s just a nightmare what he did,” Dijan said. “It’s just so sick you wouldn’t believe it.”
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Jul 3rd, 2008