How Easy is it to Steal Your Trailer Boat?

Imagine watching as thieves steal your boat. Then picture yourself hopping in your truck and driving after the thieves while calling 911. That’s exactly what happened in Orange County, Florida, as some thieves made off with a boat right from the owner’s driveway. If you make it easy enough, you too can get your boat stolen. We’ll show you how.

First Things First



If we follow our guy’s example, then we’ll see that it helps if you live in an area where people are using drugs. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem since we ALL live in an area where drugs are used. Right after these guys were caught, the cops asked if they “used recently.” Sure enough, one of them admitted to using crack. Now, once we’ve got the area down, we need to provide something that can be sold for drug money. Enter…your boat, or more to the point, your boat on a trailer.



Next, Make It Easy



Now all you have to do is leave your boat on the trailer and the rest will take care of itself. At this point, anyone with a truck can come along and get the job done. What you don’t want to do is make it difficult. Our guy didn’t even chain the trailer to his house or garage. Not that that would have helped much. That just slows them down for a minute while they cut the chain.

Other Tactics…



We’ve seen several methods, but the most effective seem to be the ones that actually disable the trailer. This can be anything from putting it up on blocks, to putting a heavy padlock on the ball latch, to our favorite…removing a tire. Just get yourself a simple floor jack and you can have one of the tires on or off in less than a minute. And since most thieves are looking for the “grab and dash” boats, yours will be bypassed in favor of a juicier target. I guess it’s just too much trouble to carry spares along when you’re out stealing.



And There You Have It…



So you see…losing your boat isn’t as hard as it seems. Basically, all you have to do is… well, nothing. Something at which most of us are experts.



We’d like to hear your boat-theft stories…on either side of the equation…