Thieves usually have one of two goals in mind when stealing a vessel in South Florida or the Bahamas. In my case the items of value were taken off the boat and what was left – the hull, was dumped. The other goal is perhaps more nefarious. High powered center console style boats, usually longer than 30 feet, are stolen for their speed and storage capacity. Vessels stolen from Florida or the Bahamas are used once in smuggling drugs or trafficking humans. A typical route might find a vessel stolen in South Florida running to Cuba, taking on its cargo, and then either back to South Florida or to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Several hundred miles of open ocean running by thieves who have little care for the boat beyond their needs for the day is sure to take its toll on even the best constructed hulls and engines. Vessels used in this manner, even if they are recovered, are often a total loss for their owners and their insurance company.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what can you as a boat owner can do to keep your boat safe? The reality is that experienced thieves are quite adept at defeating any individual security device. However, when multiple systems are layered together your vessel’s security increases exponentially. Reliance on any single measure is insufficient to deter experienced boat thieves. What I will try to do in this article and in follow-up articles in this series is help you formulate a plan that incorporates multiple security methods making your vessel difficult for even experienced thieves to steal. By increasing the degree of difficulty to steal your vessel, the time it takes thieves increases making it more likely that you or a neighbor will catch them in the act and be able to alert authorities.
I break the security involved into three layers. The first layer focuses on securing the location the vessel is kept, be it your driveway, yard, storage facility or slip. Following that comes the physical security involved in securing the vessel itself whether it’s in a slip or on a trailer. The final layer is onboard security thieves must overcome to actually steal your vessel. Think of each layer like the walls of a castle, a thief must scale each wall before they are able to steal your vessel. This article and others in the series will help you formulate a plan to construct the walls around your vessel as well as focus on specifics to making each individual wall stronger.
The first layer, the site where you keep your boat, is something many people neglect entirely. Often those who keep their vessel at home are lulled into a false sense of security, feeling safe in their home and yard. And for those who keep their vessel elsewhere like at a storage facility or marina, feel the site’s security rests with the operators of the facility. Regardless of where you keep your boat, there are a number of easy steps you can take to increase the security of the location and in some cases you may be able to work with other boat owners at the same location or the operators of the facility to provide robust security for all who store their boat there.
The first step is being security conscience when choosing a location for your boat. Whether it’s your own yard, a storage facility or a marina, security should be one of the factors you consider when you first select a location for your boat. If you are keeping your boat somewhere other than your own yard, be sure to ask the operators of the facility what their security plan is and what steps they’ve taken to secure the site. If they seem knowledgeable of the threat posed by boat thieves then perhaps they’ve already taken some steps to secure the facility. On the other hand if they seem unaware of the risks involved or are unreceptive to suggestions then perhaps a new location is in order.
Whether at a marina, storage facility or in your own yard, one of the most important things to think about when securing the location where you keep your boat is access. Who has access to the location and how is access controlled. In your own yard this is easy, you and your family have access and can control access to your vessel to those you know through a fence or wall. At a larger storage facility or marina this is more difficult, hundreds if not thousands of people may have access to the specific location where your vessel is kept. Some marinas and storage facilities will limit access through gates that only members have access to combined with security guards that patrol the facility limiting access to only those who should be there and providing an extra set of eyes on all vessels stored at the facility.