How bad is
dinghy theft in
Caribbean?
When I read threads its almost as if its a case of when not if your
dinghy will be stolen. I have
images of hundreds of prying eyes waiting for their chance to pounce!
Can someone give me some first hand experience of what's going on and where the worst places are for theft in
Caribbean.
I'll be there for about 4 months (Includes Bahamas)
Are thefts at night or in the day?
I read that you lock the dinghy up while ashore. Its hard to imagine what kind of system will be theft proof. I assume only a deterrent and maybe I can use long
steel wired bicycle lock?
I imagine it would have to be pretty long unless there are some sort of rings ashore to lock to. What about when you go to the beach? I always padlock
Outboard mounting clamps together whether on the dinghy or on my yacht.
Someone told me they simply hang my dinghy from the
halyard while on
boat? Doesn't seem overly safe to me as it would take no time at all to jump onboard and cut the
halyard?
I have dinghy
davits 3 metres out of
water so was going to padlock dinghy to
davits when ever I'm on the yacht
I'm more concerned with when I go ashore. Do I pay
Boat boy to look after it? No idea what the going rate would be for that?
I was hoping to use my Walker Bay RID as it had awful melted tubes and an old scruffy 3.3hp
motor and I assumed it would be a less desirable boat to steal. But the tubes are now not fixable and without tubes not stable enough for anything other that light seas. So now in addition to Walker Bay I'm going to get an
inflatable rather than buy new tubes as Walker bay is a slow boat with max 3.3hp so probably not best option for Caribbean anyway.
We are definitely a cruising yacht. We don't look overly wealthy (certainly my bank account doesn't). I know locals in most cases are on low incomes, or out of
work and every one in a boat has more
money than them. We certainly wouldn't be trying to make anyone feel poor by being flashy and therefore hopefully making ourselves less of a target.
We certainly want to engage with the locals as we would with people back in
New Zealand.
Thanks