system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How can boat owners and captains leave a crashed or sunken boat and walk away forever with no civil or criminal penalties?

If I crash my car I can't just leave it there and walk away forever. Why, if a boat crashes or sinks in shallow water, can the captain and owner just leave it there? I see this all the time on shows like Deadliest Catch.
gpt
It's also REALLY hard to retrieve boats when they sink in open water. Depending on tides and current patterns it may not be anywhere near where it went down the next day. Sometimes the equipment on your vessel will still be transmitting and you can ping your gps or sat-nav to find them in open water, but usually not. However If you sink your boat in a harbor or at the dock (trust me, it happens a LOT!) you're expected to get it the fuck outta there.