Boot key beware!

My buddy is cruising the Keys and informed me of a significant theft problem in Boot Key Harbor. He was anchored there for a few nights with his Trinka sailing dingy tied to his stern. Between 9PM and 11PM it was stolen. He was aboard when this happened. He has reported the theft to the police. They told him that there has been a significant increase in harbor theft recently. So bee careful and keep an eye open for a 10" Trinka dingy, beige color.

2 words. exploding dingy.

Numbers 1 and 2 of theft reports in all areas of the country and world are the outboard off the dinghy or the dinghy itself. Best if possible to raise them, but, if not, certainly need some strong locking mechanisms.

Exploding or Sinking Dinghy would be really easy to do. Heavy duty sinking line with enough slack to allow the thief to clear your boat from the blast radius from the dinghy. Line goes tight.....dinghy goes boom....

Sorry..... Commando was on tv today LMAO

Electro said:

Exploding or Sinking Dinghy would be really easy to do. Heavy duty sinking line with enough slack to allow the thief to clear your boat from the blast radius from the dinghy. Line goes tight.....dinghy goes boom....

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m

We just spent 5 weeks at the mooring field in Boot Key. During that time I've heard no mention on any thefts. Any problems are known through the fleet the next morning on the daily net. I don't doubt it happened as described. Boot Key is a great place to stay, just be diligent.

Electro said:

Exploding or Sinking Dinghy would be really easy to do. Heavy duty sinking line with enough slack to allow the thief to clear your boat from the blast radius from the dinghy. Line goes tight.....dinghy goes boom....

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A wee bit over the top, perhaps ...but what about a plug in the bottom of the dink that goes in from the outside, attached to your boat with a strong line that doesn't float... About a 3" hole oughta be big enough to sink the dink about 10' after the plug comes out...leaving you with a recoverable dink instead of a pile of kindling...and a much lower likelihood of taking out the boat on the next mooring along with the dink.

Peg-what about a spare holding tank in the dink? The plug gets pulled, the thief is covered in "effluent", and then should be easy to find. If nothing else, arrest him for illegal waste discharge.

Dinks have positive flotation and won't completely sink unless one seriously compromises their integrity.

Reminds me of an electrical engineer friends car prowl solution. He hooked 110v to primary of ignition coil then secondary to car body. Probably at about 250kilovolts. Later that foggy night a knock on the door. It was a cop. He said ,"whatever your car is doing make it stop". They walked out to car to see a wonderful and large corona discharge. He unplugged it.

You're right Peg, blowing up the ding would be a waste of a ding..
Perhaps a UV dye pack like the banks use? It could be set up for wireless too! Ding gets too far away and POP goes the dye bag... Naturally this would need to be a disarm able system

Much as I like the idea of explosives, I had to settle for a more passive anti-theft system: My dinghy looks old and well-worn. OK, admittedly, it IS old and well-worn.

My theory is, it'll be one of the last ones in the anchorage that thieves would be interested in.

Now I have to work on the outboard. That's kind of old too, but it looks brand new. I was thinking of trying to find a beat-up cover from the same model, or maybe some kind of tape that makes it look beat-up.

CaptTom said:

...Now I have to work on the outboard. That's kind of old too, but it looks brand new. I was thinking of trying to find a beat-up cover from the same model, or maybe some kind of tape that makes it look beat-up.

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That has worked for us. Here's our 15 hp, Yamaha 2 stroke, 2months after we bought it. I took the factory decals off, used some black primer and then added our own decals.

I use a dingy lock that covers the mount screw handles so it cant be removed. Then I use a plastic covered cable with prominent lock to connect the dingy to the boat or shore.

A realistic solution to dink and outboard theft is a motion activated floodlight and security camera mounted high enough to prevent the thief from seeing it. Even a few years ago, that would have been prohibitively expensive...today the cameras that let you use your phone or tablet to see who's at the front door are dirt cheap. Not only would suddenly being bathed in light send the would-be thief running for cover, but you'd have a photo of him for the police. 'Twould really be simple to rig up, and if power resources are tight, a solar panel could provide all the power it would need.

meridian said:

We just spent 5 weeks at the mooring field in Boot Key. During that time I've heard no mention on any thefts. Any problems are known through the fleet the next morning on the daily net. I don't doubt it happened as described. Boot Key is a great place to stay, just be diligent.

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Best solution to avoid missing dingy is to tie it securely. it is easier to report theft, and more likely to get insurance paid out, than to accept that it wasn't tied up properly the night before.

To be fair, for the OP's friend he does not really know whether it just got loose on its own or with the somebody else's 'help', and fearing the worst is a natural reaction.

I always lift it. A good and easy to use lifting system is worth the investment and better then the hassle and expense of replacing a missing dingy.

If you secure the motor to the dingy and the dingy to the boat with hardware stronger than bolt cutters....

Then isn't time or power tools required to steal the dingy which is either undesirable to crooks or very likely to wake you without fancy systems?

at least if the dingy is close aboard to where you sleep?

Insequent said:

... I always lift it. A good and easy to use lifting system is worth the investment and better then the hassle and expense of replacing a missing dingy.

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What he said. We don't lift it to the boat deck but enough to get it out of the water every night. Based on the anchorage, we may even add a lock/cable to Hobo. We have never lost our ride and the side benefit is the bottom stays clean (er).

Larry M said:

What he said. We don't lift it to the boat deck but enough to get it out of the water every night. Based on the anchorage, we may even add a lock/cable to Hobo. We have never lost our ride and the side benefit is the bottom stays clean (er).

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I guess you accomplish most of the same as lifting it to the deck, but just curious, you have it half way, why not lift it the rest of the way? It's just an extra two or three minutes.

I guess in general for those who do have the ability to lift to a deck, I'm a bit confused as to why they don't do it. Maybe some lifts are more trouble than others but we just don't find lifting it up and putting it back down to be a problem.

BandB said:

I guess you accomplish most of the same as lifting it to the deck, but just curious, you have it half way, why not lift it the rest of the way? It's just an extra two or three minutes.

I guess in general for those who do have the ability to lift to a deck, I'm a bit confused as to why they don't do it. Maybe some lifts are more trouble than others but we just don't find lifting it up and putting it back down to be a problem.

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Lifting or splashing the dinghy to this height is a one person job with the remote. Lena can do it by her self and it serves our purpose of getting it out of the water.

Larry M said:

Lifting or splashing the dinghy to this height is a one person job with the remote. Lena can do it by her self and it serves our purpose of getting it out of the water.

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And you have no problem with it swinging?

meridian said:

We just spent 5 weeks at the mooring field in Boot Key. During that time I've heard no mention on any thefts. Any problems are known through the fleet the next morning on the daily net. I don't doubt it happened as described. Boot Key is a great place to stay, just be diligent.

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I just spent five weeks in the mooring field at Boot Key also and didn’t hear a single word about any thefts. It certainly would be on the net every day if there was any problems.

We did had a 30+kt blow one night and they were pulling runaway dinks out of the mangroves for the next couple of days. KJ

BandB said:

And you have no problem with it swinging?

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No. At a minimum, the stern is secured to the aft cleat. At anchor, the bow is additionally secured to the mid-ship cleat.

Lifting our 700# Boston Whaler is a snap. Settling it into its custom made chocks is another matter. It must be done precisely and I wind up having to lie down on the boat deck to muscle it into place while the Admiral runs the crane. (Trust me, I never lie under the dinghy, just off to the side.)

I am trying to "invent" a means of guiding the tender onto the chocks without the effort I currently need to expend. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Howard

KJ said:

We did had a 30+kt blow one night and they were pulling runaway dinks out of the mangroves for the next couple of days. KJ

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Amazing how many times I've heard "somebody stole my dinghy". On the lake it use to be just "someone stole my jon boat". Then they were located where they'd floated ashore and the person still swore someone had to do it, that it couldn't be they just didn't secure it properly. Now dinghies do get stolen as do their outboards. But most of the time that happens the manner in which they were secured leaves something to be desired.

I hang mine like Larry on Hobo. The trick is to bring the center of the lift inboard a foot or two. This exerts a inward pulling force enough to keep it from swinging, even with moderate roll.

Scott

Dye packs are way more fun

hmason said:

Lifting our 700# Boston Whaler is a snap. Settling it into its custom made chocks is another matter. It must be done precisely and I wind up having to lie down on the boat deck to muscle it into place while the Admiral runs the crane. (Trust me, I never lie under the dinghy, just off to the side.)

I am trying to "invent" a means of guiding the tender onto the chocks without the effort I currently need to expend. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Howard

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I worked a boat that had. A whaler on the deck. Easier than trying to land it precisely on the center of the chocks was to land it off center intentionally, then lift the rail to make the boat drop into place. You're not lifting the entire boat, just tilting it up until it slips into the chocks.

Lutarious said:

I worked a boat that had. A whaler on the deck. Easier than trying to land it precisely on the center of the chocks was to land it off center intentionally, then lift the rail to make the boat drop into place. You're not lifting the entire boat, just tilting it up until it slips into the chocks.

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Even custom made chocks are often not made with placing the boat in mind. I'm going to use an analogy to boat trailers. At one time they held boats fine but were a pain to get a boat on. Then there were float on and drive on trailers. Look at how most bass boat trailers are. Aids on all of them to center the boat.

95% of the chocks I've seen were designed to be non obtrusive, pretty, and either removable or at least to look good when no boat was on them. Weaver has some interesting swivel chocks. UMT marine has a tremendous variety of chock styles. Chocks should self position the boat. If you're within a few inches it should slide right into place. The number one issue in design should be the ease of removing and replacing the boat. It's funny that I've seen better working chocks used on swim platforms than on decks. For instance, back to trailers, rollers became popular and there are roller chocks for swim platforms.

Here is one example of a chock for a more complex tender hull than most but one that can't be missed. http://www.umtmarine.com/cranes-chocks/stainless That one happens to be in stainless but doesn't have to be.