Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

[rwidman]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

It's pitch dark, 2 o'clock in the morning, they're hitching your boat to their truck when you confront them, and they point something at you. Are you seriously going to stand there holding your gun, and waiting to find out the hard way that it's a 12 gauge shotgun pointing at you, or are you going to defend yourself? Legally you're fully justified in defending yourself.

In this case, it is you who put yourself in a position of danger.

The smart thing to do at that point would be to run.

Even smarter would be to "confront" them from a distance.

So you shoot and kill a neighborhood teenager who is trying to steal your boat. You claim it was self defense but the teenager's family (your neighbors) claim that he had no weapon. The police find no weapon. You are charged with manslaughter.

In the end, you may beat the charge or you may not. It will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself, you may lose your job and you will probably have to move out of the neighborhood. Your photo and the story will be on TV and the front page of the newspaper. Your children will have to change schools and their classmates may take it out on them because their father killed their friend.

You will still have your boat but you won't have the time or money to use it.

In the end, you may decide that you would have been better off calling the police and collecting from the insurance company.

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

Sneaking up on and surprising someone participating in a felony hoping to stop them or? is one of the stupidest things the general public could do....the police won't even do it, hence one of the early reasons for having a siren.
I have never seen any boat worth that gamble.
Turn on your outside lights, open the door and yell....they will take off.
Or if you are really worked up, fire into the air.
If they stick around at that point...your best to stick with the insurance angle.
My two bits.
BP

 

[diesel5599]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

I see a lot of talk regarding tongue locks and they are the most common first line of defense, however, they aren't very effective. The weakest link in a tongue lock is the fact that the tongue is only held on by 2-3 bolts, all a tongue lock will do is require the thief to bring his own tongue.

There are some tongue locks that are nearly impossible to cut off, but nothing gets around the fact that the tongue is held on by very easy to remove bolts. Of course if the sole purpose is to slow the thief down or to attempt to make your boat a hard enough target that the individual decides its not worth the trouble, then the tongue lock has served its purpose.

Here is the tongue lock I had for my old boat:

http://www.easternmarine.com/FULTON-Gorilla-Guard-Storage-Coupler-Lock-2-TP20-0103/

The problem I ran into was that it did not fit all trailers, including my last boat's trailer tongue.

 

[DJ]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

Pretty hard to drag it off without a tongue.

 

[edjay]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

I keep my in a storage with my cars. If it were to get broken into, I would be happy if they only took the boat.

When i used to leave my car trailer on my driveway. I rigged it so that I had 110v running through it. Kids in the neighborhood knew better that to touch it.

 

[Joshua Nichols]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

I use the hitch lock my mother in law got me.. I don't worry about having to shoot at them.. If they come, it will be while I am gone.. I would insure it, but hard to justify the extra policy on a boat I paid a grand for.. I would be heart broke if I lost her.. I worry more about them running off with my trailer while I am at the lake... Since there is always way nicer stuff in the lot, surely they would pick up the new galvanized one, over taking mine with the redneck rigged fender..

 

[roncoop75]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

The weakest link in a tongue lock is the fact that the tongue is only held on by 2-3 bolts

They're going to need a sawzall and a punch and a hammer to get those bolts out on my trailer. Fixed that with an angle grinder and the tongue is a little smashed so it didn't go on without a fight. If they went that direction they'd soon realize the should have just attacked the lock.

And after that they can go after the log chain that's tying the lower leg of the engine to the tree it's backed up to.

Edit: Neighbor had one stolen out of his back yard a few years back. That's the only reason I added the log chain.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

My first line of defense was to move to an area where it is not an issue. I also have an insurance policy just in case my boat is first one stolen in our town in the past 35 years.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

As for locks that can be breached, I heard it said, they are there only to keep the honest man honest.

45 you are correct about the law, generally, when you are threatened, but that is a different, but important, set of facts. A guy you see out in your yard when you are looking out the window is not threatening you (except in Texas!). This is where people get confused when they hear the stories of successful home and self defense. Your example describes threat to person; I was limiting mine to threat to property. Yours and mine together show the crucial distinction.
Keep in mind that absent a statutory presumption, your "belief" of being threatened must be reasonable--as determined by strangers who were not there.
You can't carry your gun out there to scare them off. You can to protect yourself. What do you do?

 

[109jb]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

I keep my in a storage with my cars. If it were to get broken into, I would be happy if they only took the boat.

When i used to leave my car trailer on my driveway. I rigged it so that I had 110v running through it. Kids in the neighborhood knew better that to touch it.

I'm going to be blunt and may get in trouble for it, but here goes.

This kind of thing is totally irresponsible and reprehensible. You make a statement like this and then follow by saying "kids in the neighborhood..." telling me that kids had gotten shocked by your stupid setup. 110V can kill you moron. If my kid had gotten shocked on your trailer, you would have been the next to get shocked after I beat the hell out of you.

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

My boat has no tires. No wheels either!

LMAO Smart arse

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

My solution was pretty simple
I simply stuck 'Bayliner' stickers all over my Cobalt hull and 'Force' stickers on my Yamaha o/b Cowling.
Seems to have worked flawlessly so far.
BP

 

[rwidman]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

.............. When i used to leave my car trailer on my driveway. I rigged it so that I had 110v running through it. Kids in the neighborhood knew better that to touch it.

I hope you are just kidding, but in case you are not, this is a stupid and irresponsible thing to do. You could kill an innocent person and even if you killed a potential thief, it would still be manslaughter at best.

Please, anyone else, this is not a good idea.

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A MUST READ FOR BOAT ANTI-THEFT SOLUTIONS.


2.)my favorite, if your boat does not move during the winter, park it in its winter resting spot and simply remove all the lug nuts. If stolen, the trailer might make it out of the driveway, if they manage to make it farther, tires are sure to fall off at the first major intersection which will draw attention for sure!

3.)scuff the threads on a hitch ball, grease and shove the ball in the tongue and lock it down, if anything this will slow them down.

4.) booby traps are great! chain the trailer to an object, ie. fence, cinderblocks...Hide the chain so that theives cant easily find or notice, when they make their get-away they will be easy to spot when they are dragging a chain link fence or concrete block behind.

5.) another booby trap! get a steel road, much like your axle shaft, run it between two tires and into a slot of the rim, after one revolution the bar will be pinned against your leaf springs and will seize the rims from rotating.

Dude I hate too be critical of your ideas... But... Your ideas will hurt you as well When your wheels fall off Your trailer is gonna hit the ground On my trailer the signal lights would all get torn off lugs will be all trashed . I guess if you have a no-deductable insurance policy, I got 500 ded and getting my trailer takin care of would eat all that.
Why screw up your hitch ball. ?I suppose if you had an old one you never used. Stick a golf ball or something else in the hitch.
I would want a thief to see the chain to the fence or whatever . Hopefully he would just find an easier target.
Metal bar thru the wheel isnt a bad Idea, damage would be minimal to none.
Sorry if I am out of line, i am not a thief so I dont think like one. Maybe these ideas are great and I dont know W T F i am talkin about with my comments. It just seems like you are setting yourself up for self damage/expense. No Offense

 

[codybullard]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

Finger print recognizer in order to start the boat. If it doesnt detect my prints it will self destruct.

 

[boltonranger]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

Finger print recognizer in order to start the boat. If it doesnt detect my prints it will self destruct.

That's funny!
Me.. I use a lock on the trailer at the launch.
Also a wheel lock on the spare.
When home the boat is locked in the garage.
Sometimes wonder if it's safe from mice though...
-br

 

[Blue Crabber]

Re: Lets hear it!!! How do you keep your boat safe?

I used to use one of these:

Then one day I went to use the boat and realized I didn't have the key with me. Wasn't going to let that stop me. Took out a cordless sawzaw with a half chewed up metal blade and had it off in less than 1 minute.

Locks only keep the honest man honest. Sure, they will slow someone down, but if they really want it, they will get it.

 

[E_Man]

Locking the outdrive

Locking the outdrive

I thought I would post this here:

Does anyone know of special locknuts (like wheel lock nuts w/ key) that I can use for my lower/upper outdrive?

Thanks!

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Locking the outdrive

Re: Locking the outdrive

I thought I would post this here:

Does anyone know of special locknuts (like wheel lock nuts w/ key) that I can use for my lower/upper outdrive?

Thanks!

http://www.bobsmachine.com/Products/locks_sternDrive.cfm

 

[E_Man]

Re: Locking the outdrive

Re: Locking the outdrive

Hey ezmobee,

Thanks for the reply, I have seen these many times before but I find them to be a bit useless not only because someone can use a vice-grip and slowly remove it, but also because it doesn't secure the lower outdrive to the upper.

http://www.bobsmachine.com/Products/locks_sternDrive.cfm