Dinghy theft

[SuW]

Originally Posted by Gruz

JPA Cate

"10 & 15 hp outboards are often desirable to others in poor countries".

So, they are not stealing in rich countries. Next time try British muddy damp marinas, let alone rivers, creeks etc., they will steal your arm let alone dingy if they have chance or no one watching.

Few years ago when I was cruising around Croatian Istria peninsula there were dinghies and outboards theft and guess what, they caugth 3 Britons and 2 Italians.

….or we can start with "rich" tourists making FAKE sickness bug claims about hotels and restaurants all over Mediterranean.

Yep. I have a friend who said, in all innocence, "I was talking to a guy on the dock and told him I needed a cheap outboard. 10 minutes later he came along with a really nice one for only $400!"

This was near New York City. Sigh.

[JPA Cate]

It was quite a long time ago, where there was a place in Mexico where the thieves came with chain saws and sawed the motors out of the transoms and absconded with them. We heard the story over and over. Yet, our own experiences in Mexico were that cruisers were having dinghies returned to their boats by honest Mexican fishermen, and one of our good friends who lost his wallet on the ground had the Mexican finder of it go to a whole lot of trouble to find him to return it to him.

There are many reasons people steal, and, as has been made clear, theft may happen in any society. (Sorry about your pram, Pete.)

We had someone come on board our previous boat the night after I broke my ankle (in Brisbane, Oz) who wrestled our outboard into the cockpit prior to trying to leave with it. But, I wasn't sleeping very soundly, and woke Jim who went above decks and asked what (cleaned up version) on earth he thought he was doing. The would be thief ran down the dock, jumped into the water, and swam away, as another guy in the marina had cast off the thief's dinghy. The police said that they see a lot of o/b thefts prior to Christmas.

Our dinghy and motor were once stolen, while we were aboard, on a mooring off Battery Point in Hobart. It was not chained to the boat, nor hoisted. In that case, although many of the locals were shocked, the police were aware of people using kayaks to go into marinas and to moorings and steal dinghies, again, usually for the o/b's. In our case, the dinghy was found, upside down near Bridgewater. It had been set alight, and of course the o/b was never seen again. With the aid of a friend, we retrieved the aluminum hull (it had been a RIB), and Jim painstakingly removed all the burned hypalon, cleaned the hull thoroughly, and we took it to the manufacturer for new tubes a few months later. We got hold of a used dinghy (thank you, Jeremy) and used it in the interim. Had to go into Constitution Dock while the situation was being sorted. The inconveniences of having one's own dinghy stolen can be huge! There were many costs associated with it: the 2nd hand o/b for the much used dinghy; marina fees; re-tubing the RIB, plus the new o/b--and rather a lot of angst!

In the situation of the Hobart event, I feel pretty sure that the perps would have passed it by if the RIB had been hoisted and chained to the boat.

Ann

on Edit: I still think Jammer should ask around for information pertinent to wherever he takes his boat. There is always the possibility of theft, but how likely it is in a particular area is affected by local variables. Maybe the best thing to do is lock and hoist routinely, make it a habit.

[zippy]

Came out of Foxies bar late one night in Jost BVI to find our dingy missing from the dock. Was one old beat up dingy left on the dock that we borrowed to scout around the anchorage. Found our dingy tied to a small French sailboat, so we knocked on the sides. The man came out speaking only French but gesturing that is was floating by so he tied it to his boat. We will never know if that is true or not. All we know is that it didn’t untie itself and we were very luck that the old dingy was at the dock. Strangely the French boat didn’t have a dingy [emoji848]. We always lock the dingy now, no matter where we are.

[Jammer]

Thank you all for the replies.


Dinghys are not a meaningful part of my local boating culture, because of the widespread availability of courtesy dockage (i.e. free of charge) during the day and relatively inexpensive transient slips. Once in a while we get a cruising sailboat up this way on a side trip from a Great Loop cruise, and the few I've seen have dinghys. I also see them on larger power boats, who use them to land on sandy beaches of uninhabited islands.

[CarlF]

It really depends where you cruise. You can't generalize. Stolen dinghies have been a big problem in the Caribbean for decades. But in the US and Bahamas it isn't - and very few people lock their dinghies.

There are always the few exceptions - Miami, Nassau, parts of New Jersey...but even in these few spots, the theft may have been five years ago and the story of the one or two thefts out of thousands of dinghies just keeps getting repeated. I would guess that in the US and Bahamas that for each dinghy stolen, 10 are lost because the painter was poorly tied and it drifted off.

if you locked a dinghy in Maine, people would look at you funny. And in the small islands of the Bahamas like Black Point it might seem a bit insulting to the locals.

So the best thing is to see what others are doing in each harbor.

[belizesailor]

Wow, chain saws! That would sure blow the element of stealth.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Wow, chain saws! That would sure blow the element of stealth.

If you're at the cantina, you don't hear, the mariachis are too loud, and your mind, elsewhere. The dinghies, blocks away.

Apologies for a not nice thought, but, really, I think thieves have little respect for their "marks."

Ann

[RaymondR]

I once accidentally "stole" two dingys at once.

I had been in a heavy session of football watching in a yacht club and having gotten to the confused, befuddled and tired part of the night decided to go home to bed. The club did not have a dingy jetty and because of the large tides thing could get a bit confusing. I retrieved my anchor and a tangle of line and threw it into the bottom of my dingy and motored off. About half way home to my boat I noticed two dingys following me. In my befuddled state it took me a while to sort out that dingys are not like stray dogs. I fumbled around in the bottom of my dingy and found not one, but three anchors tangled up in the ball of anchor line. Returned the whole mess to the beach and after fumbling about trying to untangle it for about half an hour undid my anchor line from the bow and went home to bed leaving the whole mess on the beach.

[Suijin]

Theft at boatyards in Annapolis skyrockets during the boatshows. It’s generally accepted that it’s visiting cruisers, who come ashore in the evening to shower and do laundry...and take stuff that is not secured.

Theft happens everywhere.

Bottom line: make it undesirable, or lock it or ideally both.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Gruz

So, they are not stealing in rich countries. Next time try British muddy damp marinas, let alone rivers, creeks etc., they will steal your arm let alone dingy if they have chance or no one watching

Just because a nation has a big GDP, does not mean many of its citizens feel financially secure.

Petty immorality tends to be endemic in a culture with great inequality.

[Group9]

Some people just take stuff that doesn't belong to them. I'm sure they justify it a hundred different ways to themselves. Locks can help deter that to a certain degree.

But, what you gonna do?

[Hwclark]

Relative to securing while a shore, need more direction as to what to use and how to rig it up so as to secure dingy and motor? Thanks for sharing. I am a newbie as to living aboard a Trawler.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by Hwclark

Relative to securing while a shore, need more direction as to what to use and how to rig it up so as to secure dingy and motor? Thanks for sharing. I am a newbie as to living aboard a Trawler.

We have: a locking bar on the outboard motor, an undesirable outboard (3 HP Tomahatsu) an undesirable dinghy (hard dinghy with oars), and we use a 8 foot long fairly thick wire and padlocks at docks if we leave the dinghy unattended. Always. We attempt to lock the wire through a cleat or boardwalk and through the boat structure (under the built in seat).

We can't really do more. Nothing is perfectly secure.

We will haul the dinghy out of the water if we're anchored anywhere dubious. In the US/Great Lakes we usually leave the dinghy tied on to the boat at anchor secured with light chain. In home waters (1000 Islands), we just tie it with two lines...we're more likely to lose it by chafe than theft.

[Shrew]

I honestly think the question it too generic. It is location based. Just like saying "Do I need to lock my car?". Same answer "it depends". In my general neighborhood, nobody locks their cars at night. We didn't lock our house for the first 20 years we lived here. In fact, in the last few years, we only lock our house if we're leaving overnight.

Around the local convenience stores, you will pull up and 75% of the cars are idling with the keys in them while people are inside.

From Long Island, CT, RI, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, we've never locked our dinghy or motor.

My understanding is some places you will need to lock your dinghy. Assess the economic situation of the area.
Crime is overall dictated by poverty levels and population.

Theft increases with a combination of an increase in both poverty and population.

[stormalong]

In the Caribbean you need to lock your dinghy in most places.

We have 20 feet of stainless steel chain, threaded through a plastic discharge hose. The end on the dinghy is secured to the transom with a modified stainless steel trailer lock pin - about 1/2 inch on diameter. It is a keyed locking pin that West Marine sells/sold.

Very heavy chain. Here in the PNW we don't need to bother. Plus the dink and outboard are over 10 years old and not too desirable to thieves.