What's to stop someone undoing your ropes and letting your boat float away?

I may just be unlucky but several of the things described have happened to me or have affected me. In the Caledonian canal one afternoon three lad came along the towpath to where we were moored waiting for a lock to open. One chatted to me asking questions until the other two yelled "run now Joe" and shoved the boat out. To be fair Joe didn't run but said that his mates were stupid and helped me tie up again.

I got a tyre stabbed overnight once when we were staying in a friend's flat. The area, near Shepherd's Bush, was residents only parking and we had parked on the other side of a railway that ran behind the flat. I suspect that we had pissed off someone on that side by occupying their space.

The fire occurred in Clyde River Boatyard when a boat next but one to me was set on fire. My boat was not damaged but took a lot of cleaning but the boats adjacent to the one on fire were seriously damaged if not written off. The boat set on fire was owned by a young lad who was reputed to be a bit of a man for the ladies. It was speculated that he had been shafting the wrong man's wife.
 
You will find examples of wanton vandalism everywhere. One has to learn to deal with it. Protecting ones possessions where possible.
I do recall a norwegian SH sailor who, for some reason, was being hassled by vandals. He produced a catapult. Being a good shot he managed to cause a couple of them to squeal with pain in the legs. Sorted the problem very quickly as they ran (limped) away. However, he left a couple of hours later & I am not sure that one should advocate such methods. Effective though ;)
 
A boat was set adrift from Ha’penny pier on the Stour at Harwich a few years back. The incident prompted the HHA to put a key-code gate in. Damn shame.
 
fredrussell said:
A boat was set adrift from Ha’penny pier on the Stour at Harwich a few years back. The incident prompted the HHA to put a key-code gate in. Damn shame.
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Yes, it’s a shame. In general I am against cutting ourselves off from locals. For much of the time, the more people around, the safer one’s property. In the end, there is no defence against a world-class idiot.
 
I know a guy who had his boat tied to the bottom of his mooring piles at low tide. When the tide came in it tipped the boat over and sank it. We believe this was a personal fued.
 
Only happened once in 45 years of boat ownership, probably late 80s or early 90s. We had tied our Southerly alongside a short pier and gone ashore to meet friends in the local hostelry and returned to find our boat untied. It was Findhorn and the tide rushes out past the pier at several knots. I had left enough slack to allow our boat to sit easily on the bottom but knew we'd be back before she dried out. I knew the current would pull her back away from the ladder and had left a midship line to the ladder close to the waterline. Both bow and stern lines had been thrown in the water and she was right at the corner of the pier at an angle.
The keel was pinned up and we only needed 0.55m to float. I just went down the ladder and slowly pulled her forward, adjusted the lines and went to sleep.

I imagine it would have been drunken yobs. Really luck they didn't notice the third line near the water as she'd have gone into the out-going tide and vanished out to sea at about 6 knots, assuming she didn't crash into things on the way.
 
Plenty of expensive cars parked on the streets. Nothing to stop anyone sticking a knife in the tyres or keying the paintwork. It happens, but not often enough to change things - thank goodness. There are probably more people with grudges against shiny cars than boats that they have no knowledge of how to ‘value’.
 
No problems for my little boat ona swing mooring. Had a few occasions of yoofs getting on board even breaking in. Three RIBs at our club up on floating deck are padlock and chained to a post. ol'will
 
MikeBz said:
Plenty of expensive cars parked on the streets. Nothing to stop anyone sticking a knife in the tyres or keying the paintwork. It happens, but not often enough to change things - thank goodness. There are probably more people with grudges against shiny cars than boats that they have no knowledge of how to ‘value’.
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My Late Brothers Wife took a knife to my cars tyres ... he'd offered to look after my car in UK which I kept for the short periods I returned to UK ...
My Brother and his Wife were in their last days of living in same house .... she decided to lash out at everything connected to my Brother .... including me.
 
I used to worry about this when we were moored at Eastlands on the Hamble. Quite a fast tide ran by our berth on the outside of the outer pontoon and the boat could have ended up god knows where. One boat either came adrift or was set free from a yard downriver from us and ended up on the bank, fortunately undamaged I think. Not worried now we are in a marina.
 
penfold said:
Mainly for the purpose of a comfort blanket, occasionally for stabbing other yoofs, never for the purpose of stabbing slumbering yotties or casting them adrift. Stop reading the daily mail, it might not give you cancer but it will rot your brain.
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I've seen this in my old home port of Calvi, Corsica several times, and you can stick that daily mail comment where the sun don't shine.
 
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For a long time the CCC pilot book described Scottish West Coast Marina - Oban - Summer & Winter Berthing. as prone to vandalism. I never knew why they said that and for so long, but it was not the case, yet that was the reputation it received. Gone now, the reputation. At Largs Marina, on the hard, I had my bottle screws stolen from the cockpit. The hard at Largs is not gated and easily accessed. My fault, if you don't want the dog to eat out the bin, dont put the dog and the bin in the same room. At Clyde Marina - Gateway to Scotlands West Coast there were boats that had been hit by stones thrown from the pavement above quay. On the hard, one boat had its framed screen smashed by a stone thrown from the pathway to the railway station (could have been an air gun, stone throwing is an assumption). These events were decades ago. I was berthed at A walk around the harbour - Burntisland Harbour again, decades ago, and was caretaking on the yacht over the weekend, so just myself. I awoke with the boat moving and looked out the aft cabin window to see two wee boys hauling on the stern line, accessible from the harbour steps. I went to the companionway and watched out the galley window. They were very light weight kids and the boat kept moving away when the tried to get on. At the companionway there was a start button for turning over the engine and the exhaust outlet was right at the steps. I push of the button just as they grabbed the stern line again, the engine roared to life. I have never seen two people bolt so fast.

All in all, my experience is that stuff is safe.
 
I have heard of one occasion when people climbed aboard while the owner was asleep on board. At that location there is now a security gate. On another occasion in a marina a homeless person was found sleeping on board. But in both cases no damage or theft involved.
We met one inland boater who returned from the pub to find his eberspacher would not work. His newly filled fuel rank had been pumped out while he was in the pub.
 
I know a man and wife who have one of those boats with a double cabin aft, with an opening porthole that enables one to see into the cockpit.

One night, whilst securely berthed in a South Coast marina, the wife was woken by a noise.

Peering through the porthole, she descried a naked human bottom rising and falling regularly, to the accompaniment of encouraging noises from a woman sandwiched between the owner of the bottom and the cockpit seat.
 
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MartynG said:
We met one inland boater who returned from the pub to find his eberspacher would not work. His newly filled fuel rank had been pumped out while he was in the pub.
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one of thee motor boaters at a marina was at had his petrol cans emptied of the petrol and replaced with water.

He the filled if boat petrol tank with the water that was in the petrol tanks.
 
Adetheheat said:
I dont mean to sound like a psychopath but if someone doesn't like me he could wander over to my boat undo the ropes and let my boat float away?? Has this likelihood been thought of?
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this happened a couple of times at hull marina when i was berthed there, local youths jumping onto the pontoons from the basin walls and unhooking boats, one of them was an 80 foot steel barge live aboard without his own propulsion.
 
We actually had this happen on the river seven in Worcester about 15 years ago , my parents and there friends were on board and if it wasn’t for the fact that one of them woke up when the person who untied the boat chucked the rope on the back deck , the boat could easily have be Smashed up against the bridge , not long after that we relocated the boat permanently to the south coast , but even that wasn’t without its incidence, simlar thing happen in ryde harbour when tied up at the wall , someone untied the boat in the night as the tide was in it could have been dangerous, lucky my dad was light sleeper
 
My grandfather was a Falmouth boy and he grew up there in the early part of the 20th Century when the harbour would be full of schooners and commercial sailing ships moored or anchored. The crew used to come ashore to the pubs in the ships' boats. My grandfather and his mates were always up to mischief, they would wait until the guys were in the pubs then nick the boats and row them to the quay at the far end of town - half a mile or more away. Of course the guys would go back steaming drunk to where they left the boats and then spend ages looking for them. Some of the guys got wise to it and would wait for the boys at the other quay and grab them and throw them into the sea. The boys then having to spill some yarn to their parents as to why they were soaked to the skin.
Youngsters and and misbehaviour - nothing new under the sun.
 
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