Free: Help find my boat...stolen

[alansmith]

Off Jet, wish u the best of luck. Nothing more I hate ... the thief. Seems to be a lot of that going around these days. In California I almost had my diesel truck stolen twice. I put in a device that can’t be hot wired or started without the female puck.

Guys... is there a device for tracking that holds up well in the marine environment?

Good luck Off Jet. Feel your pain.

[hellosailor]

Alan-
There was a "puck" type device in the 1970s, sort of a 1.5" wide cap with pins in it, and the idea was that if someone didn't have the same cap, they'd have no way of knowing which pins needed to be connected to complete the ignition/alarm circuits. I don't remember much about it, just that technically it was a fail and went off the market. FWIW.

I don't think you have to worry much about tracking devices being marine grade. They are basically just a cell phone that is preprogrammed to auto-answer and to dial out if the GPS program detects movement, or other limited conditions. You can literally set up that kind of program on any cell phone--but you've got to keep it powered. The trackers are all set up, "black boxed", plug into 12v. I wouldn't keep one on the bow in heavy weather but anyplace in the cabin they should do fine.

The trick there is that the older trackers worked on 2G data service, which was cheap and fast enough. But the carriers are dropping 2G support (ATT stopped selling the devices last year) now, and dropping 3G support "soon". So the trick is to make sure that whatever you get, will work with 4G or LTE, or your carrier will support whatever it is.

[TabbyCat]

Originally Posted by Offjetnow

The boat was moored at Dinner Key Marina in Miami(homeport) when Irma went up the west coast. My boat survived as she was well secured. After Irma passed and I returned … she was gone.

How can you be sure that she survived - she might have been washed out to sea and sunk/destroyed in the hurricane? It's truly terrible to lose your boat either way, and to not know what happened for sure can be very distressing. I had a collectible car disappear many years ago, and it upset me greatly even though the loss was covered by insurance. When it finally was discovered in a sinkhole 5 years later, at least that brought some closure, although it was painful to know that it was stolen for a joyride instead of its collector's value. I wish you luck in finding closure as to what happened to your lovely boat soon.

[TabbyCat]

Originally Posted by KC375

Genuine question, why would an insurance company do this? If they have paid for a stolen boat that is possibly recoverable surely they would have an interest in the recovered vessel. Why would they waive that interest with no further information. That doesn’t seem a prudent business move but I’m likely missing something.

Most company's policy language give the underwriter the option to take title of the vessel when paying out a total loss (or conversely, not to not take title). It's completely up to them. There are many reasons for not wanting to take title when the location of the vessel is uncertain: liability for an environmental clean up if the boat is found on the rocks or reef; liability for storage fees if the vessel is salvaged by a third party, liability if the missing vessel damages another vessel, or perhaps cost of repairing and selling the vessel is more than its value. In my experience, underwriters usually are interested in having the owners to sign over the title only after they have been able to inspect the damaged vessel. In some cases, the claimants buy the vessel back from the insurer using the funds paid by the policy, and undertake the repairs themselves.

Underwriters don't usually search for vessels either. In 13 years of working in the industry, I can recall only one instance where an underwriter hired search planes to look for a vessel, and that was because it was a very high value, easy-to-spot unusual vessel. As it turned out, the planes didn't find the boat, but fellow yachties did. So in my opinion, fellow Vagabond owners who are familiar with the boats and naturally tend to check them out are probably the best bet for this particular vessel's recovery.

Even though there are often add on coverages like towing or hurricane haul out, marine insurance it is not a maintenance plan. The underwriter is not obligated to look for a missing boat, or repair it if it is economically disadvantageous. At its core, Marine Insurance is a financial contract, designed to restore the owner to the financial condition that he/she was before the loss. (Just posting that for future readers of this thread; it seems clear that Warren understands that, and really just wants to pursue any avenue that will get his boat back, because it's worth more to him than the payout)

[GILow]

Originally Posted by TabbyCat

How can you be sure that she survived -

Check the original post, the OP clearly explains this.

"I was sailing with a friend a few weeks ago in St Maarten and ran into two sailors from Europe who saw my boat in Curacao."

[Spirit of Jack]

Hello...

Have you located your boat yet....

Regards

[john61ct]

I'm sure OP will update us as appropriate.

This isn't an issue likely to get resolved quickly.