Vandals On Lake Harriet Strike Again

I have to report that sadly, a boat has been damaged by mindless vandals again on Lake Harriet. Unbelievably, it has happened to one of the boats that was heavily damaged in last August's attack. This time, they broke into a forward hatch, climbed in, and after drinking some beer they brought with them and smoking some pot, ransacked the boat. I LOST a boat in that last attack, so writing this post makes me feel ill. And as bad as this all is, there are several factors that make this even more disturbing.

1) It could have been prevented. The MPRB tenders were NOT locked up last Friday night, and the punks used the tender to row over to the first big boat that could get to. Like Annie mentions in her email, if you DO NOT HAND the tender to another buoy holder, you must lock it back up. No exceptions. You now see what can happen if you do not.

2) Unlike a pure theft of property, these attacks are almost 'mindless'. They want in more then they want you stuff, but they will wreck that too if they get in. This means new methods are needed to protect our boats.

I'd suggest you read the first post on boat security, if you have not already done so. It is HERE. Come back and I'll cover some of my thoughts on these new types of attacks.

Because these attacks seem to focus on gaining entry and not theft, you have to do two things:

First, make it VERY HARD to get in. Look at your hatches and companionways, and make sure that they lock, and cannot be forced open. I'm going to assume that most of these kids do not bring tools with them, so they have in each case broken something to enter.

Second, think hard about getting an alarm. The punks know that the police cannot often see them in the dark on the water. The alarm I used (and linked to) has a 120db alarm that sound after 3 seconds of IR motion in the boat unless disarmed. I also put a sign that the boat is alarm protected on the companionway boards.

My alarm is also rigged to send me a SMS text message if it goes off. This seemed like big overkill last year, but now I am happy I did it. The base alarm mentioned in the first post has a 'trigger' that is used by a small circuit that I built that tells a cheap prepaid mobile phone to send me a message. The punks can smash the alarm, but the text is all ready gone. The concept and basic design is from a fellow Beneteau 235 driver. All-in, my investment for the alarm, phone, and circuit is about $200, not counting my time. If there is any interest, I might build up several more for a reasonable cost. Let me know if you are interested.

Another way to curb this, and plays well with the alarms, is to simply spend more time on your boat; as late into the evening as possible. I try to once or twice a week. Someone on the water will hear the alarm, and can call 911.And the occasional presence of people at night, and then the possibility that someone might be out there, is a big deterrent.

It would be nice to be able to expect the MPRB and the Park Police will be able to control this, but I doubt they can, or would even know how to try. That mean we have to make best efforts to protect our boats. Starting tonight.