A Halifax Member of Parliament is wondering who owns a sailboat with a rainbow windsock washed up on a Nova Scotia beach.

Andy Fillmore came across the unnamed boat with no registration number during a Thanksgiving morning walk with his family and dog.

"It's quite heavy and sturdy," he said Sunday from Bayswater, N.S. "It's certainly not a lightweight racer."

'Might have new owners'

The blue six-metre boat was stuck in the sand in the middle of Bayswater Beach Provincial Park, which is along the Lighthouse Route on the province's South Shore.

The beach is normally empty on an October morning, but the boat drew a crowd, Fillmore said.

"There were some folks getting ready for a salvage operation, so I think the boat might have new owners," he said.

Fillmore put photos of the boat out on Twitter, hoping someone would recognize it as theirs.

Possibly joyriders

Transport Canada offers a series of tips on what to do if a person comes across an abandoned boat or wreck. Those can cause hazards, especially as they deteriorate. If a person wants to take possession of an abandoned boat, the federal department recommends trying to find the original owner.

"It's very mellow on the water, so I don't think it got jostled off its mooring by weather," Fi﻿llmore said.

"Some joyriders might have removed it from its mooring and done a little partying in the boat and then failed to secure it when they were done. Who knows where it washed in from overnight."

The boat suffered some damage from being unmoored. (Andy Fillmore/Twitter)

The fiberglass recreational boat has a white interior, single mast with no covered cabin. The keel is either missing or has broken off. The boom is stowed inside the hull with the sail wrapped around it.

The little rainbow windsock is attached to the stays on the mast.

The boat appears to be damaged from being unmoored, and it filled with garbage, Fillmore said.

"Part of our mind goes to hoping that no one was hurt in any of this, no one went overboard, but it doesn't appear to be the case," he said.

"I think a good ending here would be for the owners to find the boat."