Do you Lock Up Your Dinghy?

Richard10002

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So far on our trip, we've just tied the dinghy to a quay or something, or dragged it up a beach and left it - to date it's not been nicked, and I've not felt uncomfortable about leaving it anywhere that we've been.

However, in an email from Joe on Zia Later, he mentioned that there is a dinghy dock in Syracusa where you can lock your dinghy... which got me thinking, and raised a nagging doubt.

Have we been lucky? Do you lock your dinghy? How?

Cheers

Richard
 

graham

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Usually lock it to something with a bicycle lock.Not only would it be costly to loose it but it would be hugely inconvenient when away sailing.I have seen people use an old stainless shroud from a dinghy to lock it up with a padlock.
 

Boathook

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I don't lock my dinghy and get fed up with people who lock there's to a jetty on a very short chain/wire stopping others getting ashore. Well you, can but just have to tramp across the locked up ones and when they are not fully inflated .....
 

Victorious

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My dad had an Avon nicked a few years ago.
His boat insurance covered the "tender"............. for £150 which would then buy a GRP pram dinghy... But would barely pay the deposit for an Avon
 

Searush

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Not locked it for 25 years & never had a theft, but have had one let down by kids on Conway harbour beach when we went out in the car for a day. Fortunately the HM lent me a pump (I now carry one in the car & one on the boat!)
 

ostra4

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We lock our dingy after having one stolen from beach .We use a long wire strop .We didnt bother for 12 years and never had any bother so I think maybe we were just unlucky .As above says its very inconvenient apart from the cost We painted SSR number all over new dingy not the usual TT followed by boat name as this shows which boat the tender is from and the likelihood that the parant craft is unoccupied .
 

photodog

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We dont, but I was on the pontoon up past the Tolverne Inn on the Fal a couple of weeks ago, and the couple on the next boat related to me that there had been several dingy thefts recently in the area, and that I should at least put it on the pontoon overnite. Which I did!

I just figure that Im on holiday and whilst I will be carefull, I want to leave the paranoia behind. I am more concerned e when we leave bits (Lifejackets, etc) in the dingy.

I do lock the outboard to the pushpit though.
 

Brierley

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We never used to, but then after having several reports from friends about stolen dinghys and outboards, started to wonder why not. We wouldn't leave £1000 mountain bikes without chaining them pretty securely so why leave the equivalent of rubber duck & engine just tied up with a piece of string....??

We have a long piece of fairly lightweight chain so it can be moved aside for others to get to the pontoon. You couldn't get through it with pliers very easily though obviously a quick snip with decent bolt cutters would remove it. The outboard is also padlocked to the steel hoop on the transom. We are working on the basis of deterrent i.e. it's easier to nick the one next door than attempt to snaffle ours. We also don't over-clean the dinghy and were very impressed with the fluorescent orange paint job on the outboard of the tender to the boat we rafted on at Yarmouth this weekend /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

Seagreen

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I didn't used to, but after a couple of attempted thefts and "borrowing" by kids I suspect, I now use one of those plastic coated wire strops sold by B&Q to secure garden furniture. I also take the rowlocks with me and other small but necessary bits and ensure the wire locks up each piece; oars, outboard, etc.
 

cgull

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I do now, since last year in Salcombe had a brand new one nicked from a charter boat. I simply had £600 of my deposit retained!
On my own dinghy I use a wire strop and padlock, dont like doing it but I think its a wise precaution.Did it recently around Dartmouth, just feel its better than leaving it tied only with string!
In the Caribbean on a Moorings charter some years ago they give you a wire strop to use every time.
 

mandlmaunder

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living on our boat the Dink is main transport most of the time,thieft is real ,not paranoia when its your turn the first thing the Authority's ask is ' was it locked' .
In many countries ( caribbean) it is part of your day 'lock it or lose it' . Sad but true.
doesn't matter what your Ducky cost, to lose it will ruin your day.
Our dink is on 25ft plastic wire so we can kick it of the dockand not p off others , and being that far off the dock it tends not to get bashed to much.
 

cynthia

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Having seen a group of children letting off mooring lines and floating tenders down to adults waiting downstream in Portugal, we decided to take measures to secure our own.
We had a long length of guardrail wire made up with the metal exposed and swaged as a loop at each end, which we could then secure with a padlock. This chains up everything including the engine. Twice someone has freed the mooring lines (in the Balearics), presumably in an effort to steal the tender, but the strop has maintained the security of the boat.
2 friends have had their tenders stolen in the Med.
We no longer feel embarrassed about locking up the tender, it is not an insult to the community, merely a common sense precaution.
 

PhilipH

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it's not just the dinghy (we use an old s/s shroud from a Squib, covered in plastic tubing and it's very long so dinghy can be nudged out of the way), we also protect our outboard by having painted it red and yellow stripes all over and using a very good outboard lock. Our outboard was stolen last year despite having a chain and lock to the dinghy and when we got the replacement it was a case of making it a highly unattractive proposition, so Hammerite paint it was. It's very easy to see and also means that threats such as simply taking a knife to cut away the transom wiith the outboard, are much reduced.
 

Kilter

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Always, however I had the same dinghy stolen twice from Conwy beach. Both times secured with chain and padlock. First time it was found drifting by the cruising club boatman second time disappeared forever.
 

charles_reed

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Ever since

I had my inflatable nicked in Siracusa, I've chained it to something solid.

Incidentally, when I reported the loss to the Polizia, they confirmed 5 dinghies had been stolen during the 4 week period, 2 of them expensive RIBs from the marina.

It is, of course, impossible to ensure a dinghy is unstealable - all you can hope to do is to make in sufficiently inconvenient for the thief so that they'll look for easier prey.

In fact sawing through the chain takes 24' and 2 hacksaw blades (I found out the hard way by leaving the key aboard when I went ashore).

The chain goes from the lock on the outboard, through one of the inside D-rings and is padlocked round a quayside ring or cleat.

It won't be long before insurance companies treat dinghies as they do outboards and bikes, refusing to pay out in cases of theft, unless the item was locked/chained to an immovable object.

The clause about bikes has been around for about 5 years and nearly all insurers have adopted it, some marine insurers are doing it for outboards.
 

Richard10002

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Re: Ever since

Looks like I need to get a 20ft flexible cable with a couple of eyes, and a couple of padlocks.

On the insurance front, my dinghy + outboard are just about as much as the excess, so nor really relevant to the insurance company. I only keep them in the equation as, if the whole boat went, they would form part of the claim.... not sure if that's logical - I think so.
 
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