A dead man can’t light his own boat on fire.
Hmm. I think he could.
He’d need to die on the boat. It would have to be fitted with a GPS navigation system, and an autopilot. Finally, he would need to set a timer before he died. For this, several battery powered alarm clocks should work. Simply modify them so that rather than sounding an alarm, they activate piezo electric igniters.
It would take some planning, but it could be done.
Yeah, but where’s the fun for beer-swilling friends? And who’d videotape it. It would* have * to be videotaped.
But.
I think we’ve established that dumping the body presents no problem. That leaves the boat. I did some google and found an oblique reference on another board about scuttling maybe coming under dumping, but that’s all.
What I vaguely do remember is that fishermen (in Alaska?) had a tradition of scuttling their old boats when they replaced them with new. Kind of a respectful burial for a faithful old friend. Seamen do other really wierd stuff, so why not that?
I’d say take her out 25 miles or so then go ahead and do it. Do your kids really love you? 
If the boat is the problem, find a loophole.
For example the Vikings, along with a bunch of other peoples, would sometimes slit a hound’s throat and bury it at the feet of its dead master. If we get enough dogs, and tie them together with leashes, we’ll have a raft capable of supporting the corpse but which will count as a body for legal purposes.
We use no boat at all, but fill the body with pressurized hydrogen before gluing all orifices firmly shut. Not only will the body float, the burning should be spectacular.
We use no boat, but draw as much moisture as possible from the corpse and then soak it in gasoline.
My brother died in a plane crash while in the Coast Guard. He’d mentioned before that if something should happen to him that his cremains be scattered over the Bering Sea. So the Coast Guard obliged with my mother and my sister-in-law (the widow) looking on as they tossed it out the back of a C-130. I honestly don’t recall the distance, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t more than a couple of dozen miles offshore since the flight only lasted 20-25 minutes.
(Anecdotal) (The actual wording of the laws, in California let alone elsewhere, is unknown to deponent.) If your loving descendants go to get your cremains from the crematorium, the employees will ask (in California) where the remains are going. They will deliver them to a licensed cemetary themselves. What your heir can do then is tell them he are bringing them to a (unlicensed? unmanned? grandfathered in? private?–private!) cemetary that your family has been using since the Gold Rush, and take delivery. Once your buddies have their hands on your ashes, they are clearly in a much better position.
If you want to skip the cremation, I can offer no assistance with the moves between the death certificate and hauling off the carcass.
If you want to skip the death certificate, one method might be just to have have the loved ones wrap you up and move you to the boat, if you aren’t there already, and wait seven years to have you declared legally dead. Of course if they are itching to get their hands on their inheritance, they might not cooperate.
PS, hey duffer and mangeorge have nothing on DocCathode. I admire everyone’s style, all three.
They won’t just hand over the ashes? I told my two daughters they could put mine in my favorite bong and set it on top of the tv. They plan to rotate every year or so.
To the PS;
Aw shucks, kiddo, we’re just playing. 
Actually, “in dispute” is certainly a mild way of putting it. My ex-wife, who teaches Old Norse literature in England, reported that the “stereotypical” viking* burial at sea “never once happened,” regarding the outsider’s account to be total fiction.
*Non-capitalized on purpose; many academics do so, apparently.
I knew you were!
An old Straight Dope Article on Gram Parsons gives some mention about “stealing” (AND cremating) a body.
The article mentions that stealing the corpse itself was (at the time, 1973) not illegal, but stealing the coffin was. (The punishment was a $750 fine. Again, in 1973 dollars.)
I’ve really got to start a thread asking what the legal ways to dispose of a body are. We’ve got burial, cremation (and any number of things you can do with cremains), cryonics, donation to science, donation to that guy in German who plasticizes corpses for his art gallery…
You know, the Navy dumps all kinds of trash over the side in international waters. As long as the boat is all wood or all wood and metal its fine. Any plastic is a nono.
You know, if you guys both timed it right…
Not any more. About the only thing that goes overboard is food waste and poop. Everything else is melted into discs (plastics), crushed (metal), burned (er, um, burnables), or held on to until it can be thrown into a dumpster on the pier, and then put on a civilian barge and taken out to sea to be dumped.
Hey, it doesn’t have to be a good plan, just a plan.
Hey, don’t go draggin’ us into this cockeyed fantasy. Unless ‘old boats’ is a euphemism for ‘ex-wives’?
Maybe it was the Inuit People*. I don’t think they had ex-wives.
*If this is not the proper term, please substitute the correct one and excuse my ignorance.
You say “not any more” as if I haven’t been on a Navy ship recently 
Perhaps the newer ships and aircraft carriers have all the neat new toys onboard, but some of these ships, including mine, are 40 years old. We melted plastics into discs but the aluminum cans and metal went over.
Oooh! That’s good! mangeorge, you in for this? I mean if we happen to die at the same time it’s like fate is telling us to try it! 
Then you were/are violating Federal law, and filled out grunchloads of paperwork after the fact.
Look, I’m not going to say every afloat command follows the laws exactly every time. But there are programs in place for disposal of trash, and they don’t include throwing it overboard. We had an incinerator onboard a cruiser I served on in the '80s, and there’s always the Red Goat (when it’s working) on the older/smaller ships.
I’m re-writing my will as we speak. My kid’s will give me the old :rolleyes:, but that’s ok. They won’t be surprised.