Dinghy stole with new outboard - AGAIN - what do you use?

[cottonsail]

A little off the topic but a remotely located switch is a good idea IMHO. Many years ago I had a repair shop business. A customer had a real issue with multiple cars being stolen from her. She lived in NYC. The last car stolen had an elaborate aftermarket alarm/security system. She asked me what I would recommend. The car was a hatchback. The deluxe model had a rear window wiper. Her car did not have the rear wiper. The switch mount was already built into the dash as a blank plug. Got a color coordinated switch from the dealer and installed it. It blended perfectly. It turned on/off both fuel and ignition. So to start the engine you had to turn on the rear window wiper then turn the key. According to the owner the car had been broken into multiple time but never stolen. Simple.

[sinnerman]

Originally Posted by cottonsail

A little off the topic but a remotely located switch is a good idea IMHO. Many years ago I had a repair shop business. A customer had a real issue with multiple cars being stolen from her. She lived in NYC. The last car stolen had an elaborate aftermarket alarm/security system. She asked me what I would recommend. The car was a hatchback. The deluxe model had a rear window wiper. Her car did not have the rear wiper. The switch mount was already built into the dash as a blank plug. Got a color coordinated switch from the dealer and installed it. It blended perfectly. It turned on/off both fuel and ignition. So to start the engine you had to turn on the rear window wiper then turn the key. According to the owner the car had been broken into multiple time but never stolen. Simple.

Interesting:
I had a friend who installed a hidden push-button switch behind the ashtray in his car. To start the car the ashtray had to be pushed all the way in.

Another friend had a timer attached to his dome light door switch where if the door was opened, the timer start and would kill the engine in xx minutes if the timer was not "reset" by a hidden switch (actually shorting two screws on the dashboard with a metal key) Real James Bond stuff..

The idea was if he was car jacked, he would let them take the car, then just follow the car down the road later on to retrieve it after it had died.

This was in Brazil where car jackings were/are a big problem.

cheers

[singlespeed]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

Ironically, in the B'mas with countless 1,000's of boats there, never locked my dinghy up ever...not once..never had a problem...

Tiny islands where everybody knows everybody and few places to hide something from the neighbors are seldom trouble spots for dinghy thefts. Talk to cruisers about theft in Nassau.

[fritzthecat]

I had here in Panama same problems. Turn the attaching screws of the Outboard as hard as possible, take the alloy knows off, replace it with a stainless bar, weld it straight down on the threads. If you want to take the engine off cut the bar in the middle to be able to unscrew it. Weld a 1/2 stainless chain to the bar and secure it with a padlock to your yacht or the dock

[Siberian Sea]

The problem is your choice of outboard size. By a long margin the most desirable outboards are 15-25 HP. These are easy to sell, easy to transport and bring a high price for the effort. Going with a small 3-5 hp with some bright colored spray paint on the engine cowling will greatly lessen thieves attraction especially when your parked next to the zodiac with the new Yamaha or Suzuki 15 hp. Chains and cables only stop the local kids from a quick grabbing of your property. The experienced guys come prepared with cutters and know what to look for.

[Amapola]

We hoist our dinghy on board at night. The motor is bolted through the transom. We use a cable to secure the dink and motor at an iffy dock. In all our years of cruising, we've only had one attempt of theft and it was unsuccessful.

[Nicholson58]

Good motor lock that encases the screws.
Use heavy chain and lock.
Do not use cable
We lock the gas tank to the inside of the bow locker
We lock the motor to the pad eyes at the transom
We lock the dinghy pad eyes to the dock, boat etc
Paint the motor all over to be otherwise undesirable, un-sellable, too much trouble.
Hoist the dinghy out of water at night and lock to the boat
Do not leave the dinghy unattended late at night, long after dark. We dine ashore early.
Don’t visit places with known problems.

[Robert Jansen]

Hide an Apple air tag in a hard to find location inside the motor and another somewhere inside the dinghy. Consider epoxying them in place. Test after installation.



Odds are good that the both previous thefts where by the same individual.


When he/she steals from you again, this time you will catch him/her red handed.

[CarinaPDX]

I'm sorry that this happened to you. It is common enough but still very sad - and expensive.

It is probably true that making the outboard look like crap is a good defense. I had a friend who took the decals off his brand new outboard and then gave it a "hippy" multi-colored spray paint job. He never had any problems. It has the benefits of making it identifiable as yours, not readily identifiable as to horsepower, and just plain unattractive. When I bought my outboard i couldn't force myself to do that. YMMV.

Never use cables for security: even a small pair of diagonal cutters can cut through quickly and quietly (a bit at a nip). Armored cables are a good solution if you can find one long enough and that won't corrode. HT chain is a nuisance but easily the best security - but nothing is perfect.

I see cruisers locking the clamping toggles together with a padlock; it is almost useless. A good tap with a hammer will break the toggles, allowing the clamps to be backed out. The steel cages that cover the toggles are little better; a hacksaw can cut the threads behind the cage. As it turns out replacement clamps with toggles are inexpensive and readily available.

My outboard has a tab with a hole, presumably for a safety line to prevent loss of the outboard overboard. It is held by a big nut on the end of the pivot tube (the remote steering mechanism goes inside the tube if fitted). Locking to the tab is silly: the nut is plastic and breaks easily or can be backed off.

So how to attach securely to the outboard? I have a stainless rod that fits through the pivot tube, with a head on one end and a hole for a padlock on the other. I use the padlock to attach a chain, which is locked to the dinghy in two places (transom and bow) and run over the bow to a secure point on land or dock and closed with another lock (I use a set of keyed-alike padlocks). I have considered a hidden kill switch but not gotten around to that yet. In the end, a padlock can be easily defeated by a cut-off saw or hack saw. Or for the more professional a lock pick kit can be had cheaply from China, and it doesn't take long to open a padlock with a little practice.

As others have said, the dinghies are not the target - the outboards are. Especially 15hp. But the dinghy is often used to get the outboard out of the area, where it can be removed without onlookers. Which is why both dinghy and outboard need to be secured, and disabling the outboard can be useful. In one case in the U.K. the thief stole the dinghy and when he got it to his car he just cut through the transom with a sawsall to remove the outboard so it would fit in his trunk (boot).

When out cruising you must lift and lock your dinghy every single night. A dinghy in the water is just too attractive of a target. And besides you won't have to scrape barnacles off the bottom and the lower unit. (Barnacles can take the paint off the outboard when removed, which is very undesirable as touchup paint is nowhere near as robust as the original outboard paint). Leaving a dinghy at a public dock is always a security risk, so if you have to use one then secure as well as possible.

Greg

[rossdv8]

Originally Posted by singlespeed

Been there. Found the most effective is using a dinghy cover that you've stained and ripped a bit to look abused. Couple that with painting the motor cover with a few different colors of a patchwork pattern or a visually abused fabric cover and many thieves are immediately put off, thinking that the dinghy/motor are in poor shape and not worth much. After watching a local try to steal gas from our locked dinghy tank, I also drilled a hole in the gas cap and locked that to the same chain that locked the motor to the dinghy. Basically most thiefs are lazy and will steal something that will require the least amount of effort and exposure to discovery.

My outboard dealer and his mechanic used to be horrified when I would buy a beautiful new outboard, then bring it back for its first service looking beat up and horrible, courtesy of some white single pack acrylic spray paint, and the same thing plus a bit of Valvoline Tectyl 506 sprayed around the engine and the inside of the cover.


I worked out after losing a couple of outboards that most of them were finding their way into backyard or pub sales. These days, ebay and gumtree.


Anyway, mine were always pretty easy to recognise. Liberal coating of white over the black cover, but with lots of the original cover showing through - plus a couple of splashes of Dayglo Orange or Dayglo Pink, so I could easily recognise which outboard went with which tender.


Never even lost an unlocked tender left tied up at the jetty all day and into the evening after that.

[JMaav]

There are literally dozens of GPS tracking devices to use to help track stolen property like this, yet I haven’t been lucky enough to test them on water. I know they typically need some wifi or cell interaction to hold a signal, or temporarily ‘grab’ one.. and the batteries don’t last forever. But, thay come small enough, nobody would find one if well placed.
I keep them on my rib, my motorcycles, in my old car. I either hook them to usb power, or occasionally recharge.
Sorry for your loss(es). But maybe try one out next time?
Mfrs: Apple Air Tag, Alert1, Tile Mate, Tile Sticker, Flic, Chipolo, Tzumi, and many others…

Link with App on your phone. Some have alerts to other users.

[Ken Goodings]

Have you moved up from steel cable dinghy/motor security to 8 or 10mm Stainless Steel chain?

Go one step further to eliminate the padlock at the dinghy end of your chain. Install the largest omega-shaped SS shackle whose pin will just fit through the last chain link. Install the pin with Loc-Tite, cut off the pin's knob with a hacksaw and hammer both ends of the pin with a ballpeen hammer.
Make a noose of the chain through the shackle and slip the noose over your SS outboard bar lock or through the lifting handle. Eliminates one (salty rusty?) padlock at the motor end of your security chain. The chain can run through the handle of your fuel tank too. We have another similarly attached shackle at the free end of our 15 ft 10mm stainless chain to accommodate a Kryptonite U shaped combination (keyless) New York style bike lock.
This lock slips easily through a dock cleat or over a 2x4 dock support leaving plenty of room for other cruisers lines/chains.
The long chain loops over the bow (with chafe sleeving) and into the water, it's catenary weight holds the dinghy away from the dock to allow access for other dinghies.

We've found from sad experiences of other yachties that any stainless chain less than 8mm isn't sufficiently strong enough to resist simple cutting shears. We have 10mm SS chain on the dinghy and motor, and 8mm SS chain on the fuel tank.
Please don't me misled into believing that your dinghy and motor are perfectly safe from theft when hoisted on davits or alongside with a halyard. Chain them to the railing. Steel cables, while convenient, are no longer a theft deterrent anywhere in Caribbean.
Even in marinas bad things happen! Similarly, we've seen plenty of nice outboards clamped to stern railings but not chained to the boat in marinas or on long term moorings, anchored and in boat yards.

GPS trackers are not very expensive these days. They utilize limited range BlueTooth signals to allow you to track the location of your missing dinghy and stolen outboard.
So...you have tracked and found your outboard in someone else's possession.
Now what?
Will you physically confront them with accusations?
How will you prove ownership to police?
How will you get to shore from your anchored boat while police impound your outboard and wait for a court date?
GPS trackers sound great in theory but really...isn't theft prevention with a robust chain a much more practical idea?
In other words, don't let your guard down " Don't be the low hanging fruit."

To the many naysayers asserting that even 8mm stainless chain can be easily cut with battery powered angle grinders; at a cost of nearly $700US, it's not really a thing in most poorer Caribbean countries where we've cruised.
Would you use a Mr Bean padlock on your automobile? Then why cheap out on your dinghy and outboard motor.

The whole concept of dinghy security tethers is simply to encourage an opportunistic thief to bypass your dinghy and steal one with either a rudimentary lock or no locks at all.

To learn more about how we developed this dinghy chain idea, here is my original article published by Caribbean Compass in 2017
http://www.caribbeancompass.com/dinghy_security_2017.html

[Ken Goodings]

Originally Posted by accomplice

Motor locked to dinghy. 3/8" stainless chain from motor through gas can locked to dock. Chain has large stainless shackle attached at motor end, locktite, pin ground down and hammered such that chain forms loop through motor lock.

Chain could be attacked with battery powered angle grinder, but that will take a little while and hopefully attract attention.

Thanks for the quote. We developed this padlock free ss chain system while cruising Caribbean from 2010 to 2018
https://www.facebook.com/groups/caribbeannavigator/permalink/5892841047428086/?mibextid=Nif5oz

[KayZee]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

We also do what we can to "disable" the engine. Some are obvious and trivial, like taking the deadman clip with you when you leave it, but we also cripple the fuel system in non-obvious ways so the engine can start, but only has the fuel in the carburetor...

Not for anti-theft but because I only occasinally use the dink on trips, I always run the carb dry. Takes about two minutes.


Kurt