lenseman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2006
- Messages
- 7,077
- Location
- South East Coast - United Kingdom
So, the weekend has arrived and you make your way to the Marina where your beloved motor cruiser, narrowboat, yacht, fishing boat is moored.
You make your way to the pontoon with your life-jackets, food and other paraphernalia for a weekend afloat only to find she’s gone!!
STOLEN . . . there is nothing more sickening than that? Someone is in your boat and they have no right to it. Further more, where do you turn? Who do you phone the police, harbourmaster, coastguard local boat owners . . . .? All they initially will do is take notes and record your loss in a book. Your £150,000 (or at my end of the financial scale £5,000) asset is somewhere else and in someone else’s hands!
Perhaps you should have bought that expensive bit of kit that is fitted to high end cars, once installed, a quick phone call to their Head Office allows them to turn on the device and a signal is then transmitted from your boat and can be traced by the British police using the four aerials in quadrant formation on a large number of police traffic cars and the police helicopters belonging to the 52 police forces.
This equipment is expensive, hundreds of pounds and the installation cost can push the equipment costs to well over £1,000 and then there are ongoing, recurring annual fees. These can be over £150 per annum at today’s prices.
Can I suggest an alternative? Buy a cheap mobile telephone, “Pay-As-You-Go” type and permanently install it and connect it to the boats’ power supply using the 12 volt trickle charger. Turn the mobile phone ringing tone to ‘silent, non vibrate’ (make sure it can be non-vibrate) so that it never rings. I recommend it is hidden within the boat and as high as possible so that it is able to ‘transmit’ and ‘receive’ to and from the shore based mobile telephone masts. For long term protection seal it in a poly-bag with silica-gel as moisture especially sea-water has a detrimental effect on the internal electronics or mobile phones as they are not really designed to be permanently afloat.
Now join one of the many “child locate” facilities that now exist within the UK and register the phone. One of the cheapest available is: http://www.verilocation.com/mobile_phone_tracking.aspx it is not necessarily the best or the cheapest but it is a method which will give peace of mind and costs about £70 per year. This company also do more dedicated GPS based units which will cost more money to purchase and use. You can even use two phones and have one permanently installed in your car too so whilst you are at sea . . . . . ? Some mobile tracking companies allow up to 5 mobile phones to be registered (5 children).
This is only a suggestion, primarily for UK boat owners and hopefully with the current state of technology, the cost of this type of equipment will remain stable and can be of use by some boat owners?
If you do use a “Pay-As-You-Go” mobile phone for this type of application, don’t forget that they have to make outgoing calls at least once every three months or so otherwise you will either lose the number or loose any credit remaining on the SIM card. Check with the service provider about this detail.
You make your way to the pontoon with your life-jackets, food and other paraphernalia for a weekend afloat only to find she’s gone!!
STOLEN . . . there is nothing more sickening than that? Someone is in your boat and they have no right to it. Further more, where do you turn? Who do you phone the police, harbourmaster, coastguard local boat owners . . . .? All they initially will do is take notes and record your loss in a book. Your £150,000 (or at my end of the financial scale £5,000) asset is somewhere else and in someone else’s hands!
Perhaps you should have bought that expensive bit of kit that is fitted to high end cars, once installed, a quick phone call to their Head Office allows them to turn on the device and a signal is then transmitted from your boat and can be traced by the British police using the four aerials in quadrant formation on a large number of police traffic cars and the police helicopters belonging to the 52 police forces.
This equipment is expensive, hundreds of pounds and the installation cost can push the equipment costs to well over £1,000 and then there are ongoing, recurring annual fees. These can be over £150 per annum at today’s prices.
Can I suggest an alternative? Buy a cheap mobile telephone, “Pay-As-You-Go” type and permanently install it and connect it to the boats’ power supply using the 12 volt trickle charger. Turn the mobile phone ringing tone to ‘silent, non vibrate’ (make sure it can be non-vibrate) so that it never rings. I recommend it is hidden within the boat and as high as possible so that it is able to ‘transmit’ and ‘receive’ to and from the shore based mobile telephone masts. For long term protection seal it in a poly-bag with silica-gel as moisture especially sea-water has a detrimental effect on the internal electronics or mobile phones as they are not really designed to be permanently afloat.
Now join one of the many “child locate” facilities that now exist within the UK and register the phone. One of the cheapest available is: http://www.verilocation.com/mobile_phone_tracking.aspx it is not necessarily the best or the cheapest but it is a method which will give peace of mind and costs about £70 per year. This company also do more dedicated GPS based units which will cost more money to purchase and use. You can even use two phones and have one permanently installed in your car too so whilst you are at sea . . . . . ? Some mobile tracking companies allow up to 5 mobile phones to be registered (5 children).
This is only a suggestion, primarily for UK boat owners and hopefully with the current state of technology, the cost of this type of equipment will remain stable and can be of use by some boat owners?
If you do use a “Pay-As-You-Go” mobile phone for this type of application, don’t forget that they have to make outgoing calls at least once every three months or so otherwise you will either lose the number or loose any credit remaining on the SIM card. Check with the service provider about this detail.
