Marine Thefts

It’s not just about stealing boats anymore

Sales of both new and used boats have surged in recent years. Along with the increase in sales, boats themselves have become bigger and more expensive. Part of the premise for my latest Kurt Hunter Mystery, Backwater Squall, are the new state-of-the-art electronics.

Between the requirements of insurance companies and lenders most six-figure and up boats are equipped with trackers. They are still stolen, but as advancements in deterrents become more prevalent, thieves are focusing on lucrative, and easy-to-steal components, mainly electronics.

Advances in marine electronics have followed along the same lines as technology in general. High-definition, multi-function, touch screen displays are now common. Before GPS, which wasn’t available to the public until 1993, navigation was done through a network of hyperbolic radio signals that allowed a receiver to determine its position by listening to low-frequency radio signals transmitted by fixed land-based radio beacons called Loran — C. At the time the receivers displayed sets of coordinates that needed to be converted to latitude and longitude. Depth finders followed the same path, starting as paper readers that displayed a graph of the bottom.

Today, boats are factory equipped with multiple units that function as chartplotters, depth finders, auto-pilots, radar, and even media controllers. With the higher-end systems well into five figures and multiple units aboard a boat, they have become prime targets for theft.

Thieves like easy and stealing one of these units is just that. Typically secured with a handful of screws, a cordless drill and a pair of wire cutters are all that is needed to remove one. An accomplished thief needs about five minutes to board and steal two or three units which can be sold for 50% of their value.

The premise for Backwater Squall is based on an article I read where the perpetrators used blacked-out wave runners to access boats in marinas and on lifts. Taking the units is risky, but relatively easy. Fencing them is not. Though some of the units have been recovered locally most leave the country. That takes a degree of organization. When the man behind the scenes goes missing, Kurt Hunter is forced to unravel the entire operation to find the perpetrators.

Researching the book led me to several Facebook groups: Wanted! South Florida Marine Theft Taskforce, and (Marine Electronics Industry) Stop the Thefts. The latter through a letter-writing campaign to GPS manufacturers encourages tracking devices and security codes. The group is trying to make the units harder to offload once they are stolen.

Boaters can’t yet reset a passcode through their displays, even those units with Wi-Fi capability, because firewalls prevent access to all but a few select Web destinations for downloading updated charts and software.

To track a display, the unit would have to incorporate some form of battery, because once thieves unplug the electronics, power is lost. In addition, the tracking option would have to include some form of subscription service.

To someone who has been the victim of one of these crimes, neither of these is a deal-breaker. There are also fewer technical deterrents. Simply by thru bolting and securing the units with security hardware, they would be much more difficult to steal.

In the end, I believe the industry will do the right thing, but for now, it’s great fodder for a book.