As a sailing cruiser, it’s very important to learn how to avoid dinghy and outboard theft. The key concept is to make your dinghy more difficult to steal than the next person, but how do you do that? Watch the video or read below to find out.
Dinghy And Outboard Theft – How To Avoid It Video
Three ways to avoid dinghy and outboard theft!
- Make your dinghy and outboard engine look the hardest to steel using these three locking devices. What we do is use chain rather than wire. With wire, thieves can easily use wire cutters and remove the line quickly. Chain is much more secure. Then, you’ll want to chain the outboard to the chassis of the dinghy. Install some sort of theft prevention around the fuel tanks – even if you make it look as if it’s locked down (and it isn’t). Finally, you want a chain from the chassis of the dinghy to the dock or whatever you’re going to attach the dinghy to.
- Don’t put your name on the outside of the dinghy. It tells thieves you’re not home. Dinghy and outboard theft is one thing, you don’t want to advertise that your main boat is unoccupied! We have our boat name and MMSI number inside the anchor locker of the dinghy. This allows people to contact us if they find our dinghy but doesn’t blatantly advertise that we’re not on the boat. Also, remove the HP sticker on the side of your outboard if it’s 20 HP or over. The most sought-after engine outboards are 2-stroke 20 HP or over. If you have a valuable engine, make it look like it’s not valuable. You can add also add a 9.9 HP decal or bang up the outboard cover or make it look old.
- Always raise your dinghy (davits/halyards) AND lock your dinghy to your boat at night and especially at every dinghy dock. Make sure to lock your dinghy to something solid even if it is pulled up on a halyard. We’ve known of thieves cutting halyards and sawing off davit lines! And if you take your outboard off at night (and perhaps store it on the side of your boat), make sure to lock the outboard to the main boat.
Prevent dinghy and outboard theft!
The moral of the story? When it comes to dinghy and outboard theft you need to lock down everything you can with the biggest chain realistic and make it look less valuable.
Am curious. If you found someone stealing your dinghy/engine and you are armed, could you shoot them legally if they refuse to back-down given that these items are part of your home and they have trepassed onto your abode?
Jim, I suppose it depends on what country you’re in and what the laws are. I for one wouldn’t ever want to risk going to prison in a foreign country just because someone was trying to take my dinghy. Smiles, Kim
2 stroke outboards are not allowed to be sold in Europe (because of pollution) except for commercial use., as far as I know. It’s a shame because they are much lighter than 4 stroke engines and I believe that now the technology has moved on and so maybe they are less polluting than they used to be.
Stephen, they are also banned in the USA. Our last outboard was thrown into a marsh by Hurricane Irma so we ended up in The Bahamas needed a new one. Fortunate for us we could get a 2-stroke. Due to the fact that they are banned in so many places makes them even more valuable. Smiles, Kim
Great tips for foiling them outboard thieves!
Instead of putting yacht name on dinghy we’ve put a name associated with our boat on … something that the regular Caribbean boat thief wouldn’t recognise. And a bit of fun too I suppose.
Good idea re name & MMSI in locker as well though, we’ll add that! 👍👍
Only question – what do you use to attach chain to dinghy Hull?
Hey Derek, Yes…that’s a good idea too. We have friends that have the big boat named ‘Mac’ and the tender is called ‘Cheese’. In our dinghy we have a variety of rings embedded into the bottom. They might be for davits? Or perhaps they’re there for the purpose of locking a lock to them? Not sure. On soft bottom dinghies I imagine there might be an issue with not having a strong point to lock to. Perhaps it’s a key point when buying a dinghy to make sure there is something you can lock a chain to? Thank you for your comments 😉 Smiles, Kim
It is a big thing. We’ve been sailing in the Med for a few years and heard from friends of dinghy being stolen while ashore. In Croatia we felt safe, left our dinghy+ouboard mostly unlocked even when parked on city walls for long time and unattended. In Italy we lock it constantly and we already heard from sailors that even the engine fuel feed tubes were stolen, bad!
There are many good observations like not put the name on the laterals, loved it. Thanks for this lovely and well written article.
Thank you for your comments Tiago and Mariana 🙂 Kim