Theft of RIB from Woolverstone Marina

Looking at the photos & seeing how & where it was stored I’m surprised the owner didn’t gift-wrap it.
Outboards stolen from boats on moorings at Waldringfield last Sunday night - one small, from a Drascomb & one of some 100hp+ from a rib. The latter would have weighed approximately 170kg & must have been somehow lifted onto another boat!
 
Looking at the photos & seeing how & where it was stored I’m surprised the owner didn’t gift-wrap it.
Outboards stolen from boats on moorings at Waldringfield last Sunday night - one small, from a Drascomb & one of some 100hp+ from a rib. The latter would have weighed approximately 170kg & must have been somehow lifted onto another boat!

Yes, unfortunately it’s not exactly difficult to drive in and out of Woolverstone.
 
Yes, unfortunately it’s not exactly difficult to drive in and out of Woolverstone.
Yes, and a few years ago when there was a major theft of gear, mainly stainless stuff, reels of wire and yacht rigging from the riggers shop, it turned out that the “security camera” was not switched on, yet more evidence that the then manager was a useless plonker, and this was a guy who we understood was in charge of security for the whole MDL group!!
If the toe rags want your stuff they will usually find a way. Some years ago a motor boat was ashore outside the shed at Pin Mill. It had a large outboard mounted on the transom with all the usual security locks, the thieves simply used a chainsaw to cut through the transom to remove the motor and a bolt cutter on all the cabling.
 
Yes, and a few years ago when there was a major theft of gear, mainly stainless stuff, reels of wire and yacht rigging from the riggers shop, it turned out that the “security camera” was not switched on, yet more evidence that the then manager was a useless plonker, and this was a guy who we understood was in charge of security for the whole MDL group!!
If the toe rags want your stuff they will usually find a way. Some years ago a motor boat was ashore outside the shed at Pin Mill. It had a large outboard mounted on the transom with all the usual security locks, the thieves simply used a chainsaw to cut through the transom to remove the motor and a bolt cutter on all the cabling.

Yes quite so; I would much prefer the 'Bird Scare' type of approach; assume that the thieves want to be very quiet so just make the loudest noise that you possibly can plus light the place up, even use a Rocket Flare with a exploding balls of light

Bound to be noticed, even in sleepy parts of Suffolk
 
A couple of years ago I called Woolverstone Marina for a berth at about 11.30pm on the VHF and got no reply. So just chose a berth and went to bed. The following morning when I went to book in, I raised that I could not get a response. The reply was interesting. Not all the security guards have a VHF licence, so you may not get a response. I found this unbelieveable as in Chatham Marina, also a MDL marina, they never employ a security guard without a VHF licence as they have to talk to anyone wanting to enter or leave as they control the lock.
 
Or they didn't realise how much it weighed and it is now at the bottom of the river just behind the boat's mooring.

The thefts at West Mersea included a largish outboard. It was beleived to be floated off the back of the boat into a dinghy as where a van came down to the shore, a stolen dinghy was left slashed on the beach.

I think the prime objective is to steal dinghies and outboard to fit out more trafficking. After all each separate 'traffic', the dinghy and outboard are sacrificed. The RIB would be a good mother ship for the traffickers - into a container out to France.
 
The thefts at West Mersea included a largish outboard. It was beleived to be floated off the back of the boat into a dinghy as where a van came down to the shore, a stolen dinghy was left slashed on the beach.

I think the prime objective is to steal dinghies and outboard to fit out more trafficking. After all each separate 'traffic', the dinghy and outboard are sacrificed. The RIB would be a good mother ship for the traffickers - into a container out to France.

sounds like they know what they are doing :-(
 
I hope nobody is thinking that these sorts of thefts are spontaneous, opportunistic or chance. For example, put yourself in the position of the organisers of trafficking. First bear in mind that none of the organisers get their hands dirty - by which I mean the people who run the organisations. They employ thieves. This sort of business goes back beyond the origins of the oldest profession! They need thieves to provide the resources to run the operation i.e. they need dinghies and outboards (and probably mother boats such as RIBs to quickly tow small stuff away from the French coast and to leave the small stuff with sufficient fuel to reach the UK). So how do you maximise your profit? Buy new dinghies and outboard? Hardly - an unnecessary and risky expensive resource; you can be sure that the French and elsewhere will be trying to identify the source of the precursors (ie the dinghies and outboards) trying to catch the bad peeps. They will be working with the legitimate dealers. So you need to have them stolen. And again the French will have experienced such thefts and will try to limit those and encourage crime prevention and may now be making it more difficult to source them there. So where, as an organiser, do you go next? England of course. You have employees, send them or even just ring them and place some orders. Please don't think that I am flying a fancy about this. This is how organised operations work. You only had to see the News pictures of dinghies rounded up and retained in Dover to realise that the organisers most difficult aspect of the operation is resourcing the precursors - finding punters is dead easy.
 
I lost mine out of my garden a few years back.

Security lights, trailer hitch lock wheel clamp and chained to a 4’ square buried in the ground. Oh and pretty much hidden from the road.

The only one who saw anything and didn’t consider it a problem was a neighbour that saw a certain type of van and low low loader on the main road. Busy road. Also managed to take out the lights.

I eventually found it advertised about a year later - neither police or insurers were interested in recovering it as they’d paid out already.

What hurt most was I’d spend months bringing it up to a good condition.

W
 
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