Dinghy security

[sck5]

I crisscrossed my motor with masking tape and went at it with the tail end of several different color cans of engine paint. Ended up with a sort of plaid looking outboard. Several people have admired it but nobody has ever taken it. It looks like hell but runs OK and would stick out like a sore thumb if anyone tried to swipe it. As for the dink itself, it looks a bit more tired every day so I am just letting it be. A lot to be said for plain old harbor filth.

[speciald@ocens.]

Don't use vinyl covered cable to secure your dinghy; it can be cut easily with a Leatherman. I use heavy duty coated stainless cable that I got at a motorcyle shop. I also lift my dinghy out of the water at night when I'm on the boat at anchor.

[Kettlewell]

Paint your motor to look old and crappy, and also distinctive so that it is easy to spot from a distance and obviously unique. My motor is painted bright white (in a sloppy sort of way), which both keeps it cooler in the sun and tends to stand out. I think bright yellow or orange would be good too. I also use black rubber paint to paint on the dinghy registration numbers--harder to remove than stick on numbers. But, thieves are often looking for the motors and not the dink itself. A long cable or chain locked to the motor and run through the dinghy tow rings is as good as anything because the lock is only to stop the casual thief, not the professional or determined thief, who will not be deterred by anything you can do.

This is one reason I love cruising in New England--nobody ever locks their dinghy and they never get stolen! One harbor I like there are hundreds of dinghies and lots of motors just left on the dinghy dock all summer, and almost none are locked even when the owners are away for weeks at a time. In fact, there seems to be very little chance of dinghy theft north of Florida, in my experience. Florida and south, lock it up.

[Cotemar]

Kettlewell
I agree. In New England I never lock my dingy.
I do take my starter lanyard with me, so no kids think about starting it.
In ten years we have never had a problem.

[David_Old_Jersey]

I hate these threads.

It makes me want to go out and buy a padlock..........

......best anti-theft device? being full of water. and mud. You could even use paint to mock up seagull ****.........of course makes it hard to know what you are sitting on..........

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

In fact, there seems to be very little chance of dinghy theft north of Florida, in my experience. Florida and south, lock it up.

I'm constantly amazed as I see a dinghy with outboard run up on a beach here in Beaufort right next to the main highway. I figure the owner hitches a ride to work. 'Wouldn't last one day in Miami.

I always use the harder cable to lock dink and loop it thru holes drilled in the oar blades.

[Greg S]

Every lock or chain can be broken so it's best to make sure yours is not the easiest to break. Invest in good security devises and use them. Although, perhaps, if you've spent more on the security than the dinghy is worth, you've gone to far.

I also do agree with the capngeo's POS theory. The prettiest girl at the dance gets asked out first. While I've never gone as far as Capngeo, I do know that I was a lot less concerned with our old Porta-Bote than I am with the new inflatable. I'm definitely letting the new one age rather than trying to keep it looking like new.

Mostly I think you need to cultivate a good situational awareness for yourself; how many other dinks around, how many people and what kind of people are around, how far away you will be and so on. I've left ours, locked, under a bridge with a few homeless people and felt safer than I did leaving it, locked, at the Publix up the canal in Miami Beach. Every situation and location is different. If you land the dinghy and things "just don't feel right" maybe the safest bet is to just leave and try someplace else.

[keyspc]

On the POS idea,
Not so, i have a decent plywood skiff w/ 7.5 jhonson. never lock it up where i keep it.
Guy next to me in a POS aluminin with a 2 hp or less crappy looking motor chained it all up with like 3/8 cable half a dozen locks etc,
guess whose motor got stolen?
A##H*** thinks i did it because mine didnt get messed with that day. could also be that i tighten the wing nuts with a wrench maybe?
probaly some one passing through w a small dinghy needed a small motor. all ive lost was oars.

[landonshaw]

we always lock the dinghy. On the beach we try to pull it up as far as possible. It is much easier to lock it than to swim to the boat. Another time to lock the dinghy is at night to your boat!! It has been know in many of the islands around here that you wake up only to find the dinghy has gone missing. Also be sure to lock the motor to the dinghy.

[Roaring Girl]

Like people say a lot depends on where you are. In the western Med there are places where it's known to be a problem (La Linnea; Gelves) and others where there's no issue. I would always lock my motor on, and as we have good rowlocks on good oars, we lock them on too. Kryptonite bike locks and padlocks in varying combinations. We have a hard dinghy and when we do choose to lock it to something on the dock (as in Siracusa) we wrap the lock around the thwart and then lock it to the dock.

Our dinghy si a bit battered and we only have a 2.3hp honda (sort of POS) and also very distinctive which we think helps.

In passing someone said about the vulnerability of your dinghy trailing off your stern. That's really true - always hoik it up at night.

[capngeo]

Originally Posted by landonshaw

we always lock the dinghy. On the beach we try to pull it up as far as possible. It is much easier to lock it than to swim to the boat. Another time to lock the dinghy is at night to your boat!! It has been know in many of the islands around here that you wake up only to find the dinghy has gone missing. Also be sure to lock the motor to the dinghy.

I use one of these at night

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by lorenzo123

The kids, not meaning any real harm,

Appart from flogging your dinghy and only means back out to your vessel

but I always paused on how 8 year olds thought ahead to bring bolt cutters.

Thieving pricks who had thought it out (premeditated) and probably done it before.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by capngeo

I use one of these at night

So it goes off if the cable is cut?

So I just slide the fishing rods through the loop and all is OK?
Or just take the rods or dinghy, with the alarm still attached and intact and it is OK

[capngeo]

Originally Posted by cat man do

So it goes off if the cable is cut?

So I just slide the fishing rods through the loop and all is OK?
Or just take the rods or dinghy, with the alarm still attached and intact and it is OK

That's not my pic, so I can't comment... I would think if it were I'd pass the cable through a guide eye! Yes, cut the cable and 120db

[tager]

Originally Posted by Coachbolt61

There was an idea I saw seemed to make sense. Those screw on bung hole covers. One in the transom. One in the front of the rear seat. When you leave the dinghy take both covers. If they want to take it they will definitely get wet feet before they get two feet of the shore. Smiles.

This is what I do, plus my dink is ugly. Never had a problem.