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What a surprise at the boat dock last saturday

I

Indian_Lake_Bum

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Orchard Island on Indian Lake, OH
We normally keep a close eye on our boat (stop in to check on things when we are down to the lake) even though it is under 24 hour camera security.  Well saturday after not being at the lake for 2 weeks we went down to put in the battery and give her a little spring cleaning and to our surprise somebody decided they needed in our boat while we were gone (sometime in the last 2 weeks).  Luckily to our best guess they didn't get anything out of our boat as 90% of the stuff we normally keep in the boat was at the house for the winter and hadn't been taken back to the boat yet.  The battery was on a tender at the house and all the good life jackets were in the closet at the lake house.

They didn't attempt to take the radio - the fish finder - any anchors - boat hook - sand anchor - dock lines - bumpers - filler seat - ottoman - table - or any of the nice orange life jackets  :D   :D  

What they did do was track mud in the boat (honked me off the most) and open every seat and have a look see inside and left the cover partially unsnapped and the side door swinging open.  They did open the small plastic container in one of the front loungers that has the distress flag - whistle - lake map - air horn in it and rummage through it but didn't take anything.......nice to know we have a nice boat but apparently nothing inside worth taking.

I called the owner of the docks and they came down to talk to us and have a look around as there was 5 other boats besides our that was in the same shape as ours (cover unsnapped and doors open).  They called the company that monitors the video cameras in the buildings and the two coming off the channel right away and told them to look through video from the last 2-3 weeks as that was our best guess as to a time frame.  We figure that they came in off the water as all the boats hit were towards the end of the building away from the driveway and the other cameras. Hopefully the camera got a nice shot of the boat (reg numbers) they used to come in off the channel and got a few faces to go with it.     The camera's down the walkway should have gotten some real good shots of the idiots as they are mounted right in front of our boat...... :ph34r:smile you are on candid camera :ph34r:

I'm very thankful that all they did was rummage through things and didn't damage anything in the process.  Good news is that she runs and is ready for her first ride of the year.....was to cold and windy saturday (fiance is just getting over a cold so why risk making it worse).
 
This is my main concern about leaving it at my Marina, I have 2 Lowrance fish finders, trolling motor, lots of nice life jackets, all my fishing poles stay on the boat, dock lines and so forth. Not much keeping a boat from stopping at the end of the dock and wiping me out. We just took pics of everything valuable this past Sunday. We are at a busy marina but it does get dark and everyone leaves at night time.
 
Glad nothing was taken. Our boat is right outside our master bedroom window...and I have a 12 gauge ready to rock and roll. I figure me opening the window and racking one in the chamber will drive them off. Not to mention I am on the cove with the boat launch and can be there in less than a minute if needed. My biggest fear is the prop being taken. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen! Let us know what the footage shows when they find it
 
Unfortunately, if they didn't take anything, or do any damage other than mud, I wouldn't be surprised if there's nothing you can do even if you find out who they are. They didn't exactly break a lock, or a window, or take anything, so I'm not sure there's actually a crime you could press charges on. Obviously there was intent to steal something, and they were clearly up to no good, but the laws today seem to protect criminals more than the innocent victims, which is ridiculous, but just how it is.
 
The perps were probably kids and they were probably looking for alcohol. That happens somewhat frequently. We had a series of breakins years ago when we had the big cruiser. 2006 or so, I would guess. It was kids. For giggles though, they took a lot of flares and pyro signaling guns. ATF came in and the caught the thieves...a very bad decision to take incendiary flares. Explosives yield very different charges than underage drinking and petty theft. Very very bad. Started out as kids seeing a cheap and easy way to score some free Jack Daniels. Ended very poorly.
 
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kaydano said:
Unfortunately, if they didn't take anything, or do any damage other than mud, I wouldn't be surprised if there's nothing you can do even if you find out who they are. They didn't exactly break a lock, or a window, or take anything, so I'm not sure there's actually a crime you could press charges on. Obviously there was intent to steal something, and they were clearly up to no good, but the laws today seem to protect criminals more than the innocent victims, which is ridiculous, but just how it is.
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How about Breaking and Entering.........Unlawful Entry.........Trespassing..........to name a few charges. Once they unsnapped that cover and entered the boat without permission that's enough to satisfy the requirements for these crimes......Some states also have Burglary charges that would stick.....
 
Well from what I can see the only damage was to the back of the filler seat that was up against the port side door got a small tear in a back corner from them flipping it to the helm to get the door open.

Not sure if anything else was stolen in the hit since there were 5 other boats involved and we haven't talked to any of the other owners yet. 
 
I have deleted my post (and those in response). I made a poor choice in posting what I did.

Let's get back to posting about boats!

Happy boating!
 
Just because his opinion is different than yours does not mean that the discussion is "going over the line".
 
I guess I missed the rest of this during my drive to work. I think Daril has some good points up there though about possible charges. I can't stand criminals. We had some "out of towners" in our back yard on an early summer Sunday morning. I came out on the deck and asked if they were lost. Mr. T said yeah and kept walking through my property. I called the police. Turns out they were visiting someone near by and wanted to walk along the lake through all the private residents yards. They were trying to pull my neighbors bird house off the tree and they threw my other neighbors battery/charger and fishing stuff into the lake. Just being garbage humans and they were in there 50's and should have known better. I'll have to look into that prop lock.
 
Bill N said:
Just because his opinion is different than yours does not mean that the discussion is "going over the line".
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Bill, Bennington provides us with the club for the purpose of increasing our enjoyment of boating.

This topic incites strong opinions and there are plenty of places on the www for discussing such matters.

If you have further issues with my decision, please PM me.
 
Hey Randy....

Just tried to PM you but it said you were unable to receive any new messages......
 
BigKahuna said:
Hey Randy....

Just tried to PM you but it said you were unable to receive any new messages......
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Thanks for the alert. Should be good now.
 
This very thing happened to me a few weeks ago.  We keep our boat in a covered slip at a local marina.  I brought the boat in one day and decided not to put the cover on since the pollen wasn't too bad yet and I would be back out in a few days.  When we boarded the boat a few days later something did not seem right.  My wife noticed the door under the console was open and asked if I left it open.  I thought I closed and locked it but maybe I forgot.  Then we noticed something that looked like mud stains on the captains chair, steering wheel and the radio cover.  Turns out that was blood.  I guess the little turd(s) cut themselves prying the door open under the console.  We didn't find anything missing (yet) as I don't leave anything on the boat.  Once out in the lake we did discover our fire extinguisher was missing.

After we returned to the dock and put the cover back on, as we were walking out my daughter noticed that several other boats had their console doors open or seats up, etc.  We walked back down the entire dock and there probably 10 or 12 boats that had the front covers unsnapped, doors open, stuff strewn about, etc.  We also noticed this strange white powder on the dock and on the cover of the pontoon cover across from me...I'm betting it's from my fire extinguisher.  This was while the weather was still quite cool down here so no one else had been to the dock to really notice yet.  Of course we reported it to the Marina manager and he then reported to the local marine police.  No cameras at our marina so no hope in finding who did this. 

I now cover it everytime we leave even if we plan to come back the next day.  Although we did see quite a few where the thieves just popped the front snaps and went in anyway.
 
Sounds like evidence was left. Call in CSI!
 
Sorry to hear Bum. It is a gut wrenching feeling. I lost a ton of salmon gear about 8 years back. (Know that the thieves had no clue what they stole)

Is your lift on the north side near the old carry out that they are redoing or closer to Mound?

As I was typing last night, Cameras don't seem to deter people as effectively as you would hope. I added a trail camera mounted high up (ladder) to add a deterant.

Hopefully they were not just staking out for a later date.

We had a rash of breakin 2 years ago that the thieves caused more damage than the flat screens that they stole were worth.

If you are on the north side, let's talk as you can always use my shed for valuables, I'm at Logan's Landing
 
Will we are by moundwood in the new marina that is only a few years old.  Never had any problems like this before in the 2 years that we had our boat there....must have just been lucky in the past.  The owner did say they would look into it via the video footage and let us know the outcome.

I do like the idea of a trail cam up in the rafters out of sight but a clear shot of my boat just in case there is a next time.  How well do those cams work in a low light situation?  Flash or no flash option?  Flash would pretty much give away the camera location to the turds that want to violate my baby.  We have a couple lights through the center of our building and spots out the outside corners but nothing near as bright like when it's daylight out.

Now that you mention the fire extinguisher.......I don't remember checking to see if that was still behind the captains seat......something to think about while checking things over again.
 
They are built to capture deer, etc and some are real good adjusting sensitivity to a certain field of view.

A smile you are on camera sign can't hurt. It's all about making them uncomfortable.

Knock on wood, I got the camera not for theft but because someone hit my engine cracking the cowl which wasn't cheap to replace and didn't own up to it.

Basically to keep honest people honest moving forward.

Mine has a flash but our covered docs have lights. You can zip tie, screw, whatever and if it's out of reach a flash will make them move on.

Guy on the edge has a solar powered motion light mounted also for extra

Again, I'm not a police officer but my opinion is keeping thieves uncomfortable. My assumption is that they were looking for fishing gear as I don't know who would keep alcohol other than a bottle of something onboard.
 
I had the feeling that they were looking for fishing gear, maybe good life jackets or possibly battery's....of which I had none on our boat.

Might have to look into the trail cam thing as it looks as if I could get one for less than 75 bux off amazon.  I like the solar motion light thing too.  You'll be able to find our dock just by cruising the channel......it's the one that looks like a disco with all the flashing lights.
 
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