Hobie Cat Forums

Hi,

me and my neighbour had an idea of a cheap solution to prevent theft of an AI (at the lake I live some bad guys from time to time steal a few boats).

We filles a big bucket completely with cement, at the bottom of the bucket were some thick iron wires to install a solid metal chain with. We will dig in the bucket deep into the ground beneath the Mirage well. The chain will then go up through the Mirage well into a slot in a short tube (5 mm steel) and will there be locked with a padlock.

It will be nearly impossible to dig out the bucket, because the AI is right above it and you can´t raise the AI just a few cm. It will be also nearly impossible to break up the chain or the padlock, because both of them are inside the middle of the tube and you can´t reach em with a bolt cutter.

The price for the short chain and the padlock was about 35 $.

Please look at the pictures of the construction http://gallery.me.com/docslaw#100056

Looks interesting. We always lock our Revolution to something solid when we're camping using a VERY thick cable bike lock with a U lock connecting both ends of the lock. The one great feature on the Mirage drive boats is that you can fit a solid cable or lock through the middle of the boat using the opening for the mirage drive. My standard kayak locks up with a Lasso lock, which is a lot less convenient, and a lot less secure.

Your solution looks great for a more permanently located boat.

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Hi augaug,

yes, the boat is located at this lake most of the time, it´s about 50 m to the house I´m living in.

And the bad guys have a very professional equipment...

Looks like a good fix for a permanent static location. Now if someone comes up with something similar that can be taken with you onboard, that will address all the times you're away from the craft.
I have never taken it further than a bike lock - but that would really only deter "honest" thieves

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Mickey
2011 AI Golden Papaya
2011 TI Golden Papaya

Interesting idea. Might still be able to cut the chain with boltcutters though. Of course you're going to get wet doing it. I imagine it would scare off most bad guys.

I have a long plastic covered steel cable and marine padlock so I can lock it to the car or other structures.

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Hi Cowsgomoo,

I think my pictures are a little bit misleading - if the padlock is mounted inside the tube, there is only as much of the chain going through the slot in the steel tube as needed to lock the padlock.

Therefore it will be nearly impossible to get to the chain oder the padlock with a bolt cutter (you need a big cutter), especially as you would need to use the bolt cutter in "open"/"ready-to-cut"-mode (tube is too narrow then)

Ahhh, yes. I didn't note the length of chain under the hull. I just assumed it was longer and you could reach underneath. Just checked again and see the hull is very close to the concrete block.

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Slick solution - thanks for sharing!

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Mitch

2010 Tandem Island
2010 Revolution
Chesapeake Bay and Eastern Shore

My sailing blog
Our sailing videos

I also live on a lake with sophisticated thieves. I just use a bike cable and padlock. That keeps the curious from considering a joy ride. For the pros, I insure my boat for theft. If it's stolen I will head in to Hobie for an upgrade.

Good idea. you can make it cheaper, yet, by saving the cost of the bucket and the cement. And the labor of mixing the cement. You don't need it.

A couple years ago I put four tie downs in my dirt driveway to secure my fishing boat ( Contender) to the ground during hurricanes. Very similar to your idea.

But I figured out that if I just stuck a bunch of 10 inch or so pieces of steel rebar through the chain links, and packed the dirt back down, it was pretty danged solid. You sure wouldn't pull it out. It looked something like this:



For a temporary ground anchor you could take with you in the boat, how bout one of those screw in, helical anchors you can buy at hardware stores?

My experience with most hoodlum type crooks is that they are not going to work very hard to try to steal something. If it's not easy, they will move on to something that is. They don't carry lockpicks or bolt cutters with them, generally.

Unlike me.

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Island life in the Devil's Triangle:
http://2gringos.blogspot.com/

Hi Zornzorro, a very practical solution. It's such a shame there are such people around. I did a very similar thing to secure my box trailer from theft and I still have it. I poured my concrete in situ after digging out a bell shaped hole about 18 inches deep. The bell shape ensured that you would need a truck to pull it out of the ground! Perhaps anyone else wanting to use your ingenious method could bring the chain out of the bottom of the bucket and bury the bucket upside down. Good luck with your boat and Happy Sailing. Peter

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If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of payments.
Had: Mirage Tandem, Outback, Adventure Island
Have: Tandem Island

One issue that needs to be addressed with this method of securing the boat is that it would be left lying on the ground without support, which is likely to lead to hull distortion over time. It might be necessary to also concrete some cradles to the ground as well.

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I think you could incorperate the wombat into zornzorro's idea to provide a lightweight mobile solution, check out

http://www.rapidanchor.com/

and before any animal activists get upset, I am not suggesting using a real wombat

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Hobie Adventure Island (Yellow Papaya)
Hobie Tandem Island (Yellow Papaya)

Personally, I think if someone really is crocked enough to take your AI, they will come prepared and take it quite easily.

If there is enough room that the hull is not rubbing on the concrete that is inside the bucket (which I would not like happening to mine), then there is enough room for bolt cutters underneath. The chain does not look all that thick, so only a small set of cutters would be needed and easy to use underwater, water will also muffle any noise cutting the chain. If it was a lot heavier chain, I would think it safe, but that thin chain, not so sure.

Hope for your sake I am wrong.

The one thing that caught my eye, the hull was blue , AI , guessing the demo was on a revo