Stolen Boat(s)

[Tonka]

12 hours ago, wakey_wake said:

Many boats have no HIN. Mine doesn't. Concocting an "old" history to justify wiping out an existing HIN might be harder if the age of the boat is more obvious?

 

Seem to me the time and place for marking a boat is when it's being blacked. Get your friendly welder to write on the underside of the baseplate in big letters (HIN, CRT regno, EA regno), in a place the next surveyor is sure to notice.

 

It's hard to see without spending serious money, and hard to remove without spending time and effort, and it should raise the question "where else is has this information been hidden?".

 

What are some other good places to do that?

Better still to have "PTO" welded on the bottom 

[Tony Brooks]

4 minutes ago, IanD said:

Isn't there a standard defined place for the HIN on the hull so everyone knows where to look?

 

(I think some builders also put another one somewhere hidden in case the thief grinds off and replaces the known one)

 

and that is the point some seem to be missing. Any obvious HIN, or other hidden identification is not very good at getting a stolen boat found, but once a suspect stolen boat is found all and any hidden markings or features help to establish that the boat is the stolen one even if the new "owner" denies it.

 

A variety of outside features are far easier to aid identification, for instance, JennyB had a very short front deck and the cabin sides curved inwards at the front, stove chimney on the "wrong" side, chunky fairleads close to the bow, the cratch top board tapered upwards and with a cutout at the back for TV aerial mounting, Another fairly unique TV aerial mounting system on the gas tank side, and so on, some could be removed, but removing everything would be a fair old job.

[cuthound]

14 hours ago, wakey_wake said:

Many boats have no HIN. Mine doesn't. Concocting an "old" history to justify wiping out an existing HIN might be harder if the age of the boat is more obvious?

 

Seem to me the time and place for marking a boat is when it's being blacked. Get your friendly welder to write on the underside of the baseplate in big letters (HIN, CRT regno, EA regno), in a place the next surveyor is sure to notice.

 

It's hard to see without spending serious

My boat has the HIN welded money, and hard to remove without spending time and effort, and it should raise the question "where else is has this information been hidden?".

 

What are some other good places to do that?

 

My boat has the HIN welded into the steelwork (I won't say where).  I came across it when doing some work, but you would be unlikely to stumble across it on a casual search. It also has the HIN welded onto the base plate under the engine, as well as the usual one stamped into the guard rail at the stern.

 

That said, like most narrow boats, it has unique features such a window style and placement, vent placement which makes almost any boat instantly recognisable to it's owner even after a repaint to try to disguise it.

Edited July 10 by cuthound
To add the last paragraph

[Theo]

Do you remember the stealing of Holly from Middlewich Narrowboats all those years ago.  Oh, yes, and Que Sera Sera.

 

N

[wakey_wake]

5 hours ago, IanD said:

Isn't there a standard defined place for the HIN on the hull so everyone knows where to look?

5 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The exterior HIN: transom, starboard side, near the top

 

Being a standard place, as MtB says, it can be removed.

ETA: or maybe he didn't say that. I felt it was implied.

  

3 hours ago, cuthound said:

My boat has the HIN welded into the steelwork (I won't say where).  I came across it when doing some work, but you would be unlikely to stumble across it on a casual search. It also has the HIN welded onto the base plate under the engine, as well as the usual one stamped into the guard rail at the stern.

 

Thank you! This is most of what I'm talking about. The HIN is marked in an additional place, to be seen by anyone getting much involved with the engine, and therefore suggesting there may be other place(s) harder to find [3 places in total].

 

Markings of solid metal below the waterline are going to be difficult to find and more difficult to grind off, unless the boat is dry (or rolled "PTO"ly).

 

On the downside for markings being wet, I believe there will be some dissimilarity of weld filler to baseplate. This could mean the usual "you don't need to black the baseplate" doesn't hold so well?

Edited July 10 by wakey_wake
ETA

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 minute ago, wakey_wake said:

On the downside for markings being wet, I believe there will be some dissimilarity of weld filler to baseplate. This could mean the usual "you don't need to black the baseplate" doesn't hold so well?

And likely to get ground off on shallow canals. 

[cuthound]

53 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

And likely to get ground off on shallow canals. 

 

Depends which side of the baseplate it is welded on.

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, wakey_wake said:

Being a standard place, as MtB says, it can be removed.

 

That was in answer to Ian' question "is there a standard place"

 

There are also additional places used that the maker informs the 'authorities' of. They are not released to the 'public'.

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

That was in answer to Ian' question "is there a standard place"

 

There are also additional places used that the maker informs the 'authorities' of. They are not released to the 'public'.

 

The point I keep trying to make about this that nobody seems to grasp, is once the visible HIN has been ground off, how will anyone suspecting it might be stolen know who the manu is, to ask them where a hidden HIN might be?

 

And even if they got the right manu, said manu is unlikely to just spill the beans.

 

Assuming they haven't gone bust that is. 

 

 

[Peanut]

Had the boat been recovered by other means, and it were necessary to identify it. Then the paint could be removed, the steel polished, then etched, and the ground off number would be revealed.

But it would need to be recovered first.

[wakey_wake]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

There are also additional places used that the maker informs the 'authorities' of. They are not released to the 'public'.

Excellent to hear - the only thing more excellent would be to hear that it works and results in thieves getting banged away, or banged up, or both.

 

23 minutes ago, Peanut said:

But it would need to be recovered first.

1 hour ago, MtB said:

how will anyone suspecting it might be stolen know who the manu is, to ask them where a hidden HIN might be?

My point is to put it in a place a routine hull survey is likely to find. This might be much slower to take effect but seems reasonably certain.

 

Belt and braces. I could print out multiple copies of details and hide them around the woodwork.

[Cheese]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

The point I keep trying to make about this that nobody seems to grasp, is once the visible HIN has been ground off, how will anyone suspecting it might be stolen know who the manu is, to ask them where a hidden HIN might be?

...

Surely the real owner, who will be claiming the boat belongs to them, rather than to the tea leaf (or an unsuspecting new purchaser) will know who the manufacturer is? And may even know where a 'hidden' HIN is. 

[Anonathy]

The lesson to be learned here is to post and share these things far and wide as fast as possible. I saw them whilst they were moving it unaware it was stolen. Every second boat has cameras in MK so hopefully it's not too late if you share it in the right places. I've only just seen this. Will check camera footage later but chances are it's too late now as it isn't stored forever.

[IanM]

They certainly weren’t between Braunston and Napton Junction last weekend. 
 

There was one grey widebeam on that stretch but he’s been around a while and had turned around between the two times we saw him. 

[Cheese]

This whole thing seems a bit odd. If I have got it right it looks like:

- widebeam Henry II and possibly 2 other boats stolen from around MK aroud 21 June

- can't find any mention in MK or any other news articles (and 3 stolen boats might be a big story?)

- there was/is a report on the London Boaters Facebook page on 23 June: https://www.facebook.com/groups/londonboaters/posts/10162338826626286/ . The original post is either deleted or restricted as I can't see it. (Perhaps someone on FB can confirm?)

- Henry II reported as being towed by narrowboat Blue Moon

 - Blue Moon may or may nor be Que Sera Sera, reported stolen some years ago

- Matty saw the pair heading north on the GU (at Stowe Hill?) (date unknown)

- Anonathy also saw them (date, location and direction not yet disclosed)

- north of Stowe Hill a widebeam can only be in limited places: on the GU main line, or up to Watford or Hillmorton, or in a marina

- if lifted out, a 60x12 widebeam on a trailer is fairly unusual so might be expected to have been spotted or picked up on CCTV somewhere

- a loss adjuster is looking for Henry II, as there is probably a £100,000+ insurance claim raised, and there is a crime reference number

- no mention anywhere, or of anyone looking for, the other two boats the loss adjuster indicates were stolen. (Unless one of them is Blue Moon).

[MtB]

Coincidentally I fixed a boiler a couple of days ago for a guy who turned out during chatting, to be an insurance loss adjuster and a pretty smart cookie so I outlined this case to him, and asked what he made of it. 

 

 

His view was that it sounded a bit as though an insurance company might be subject to a claim they have reason to believe fraudulent but they can't prove it. Making a big show of trying to find a high value missing item - he used the example of a piece of jewellery - can be a way of encouraging a claimant trying to diddle them to 'find' it or 'remember where it was', announce it hadn't been stolen after all and withdraw a claim with no adverse consequences. 

 

He thought the facts of this boat and the leaflet didn't quite fit but they rhyme, and that there is probably more going on behind the scenes than appears to us at face value.

 

 

 

[system 4-50]

.

Edited July 11 by system 4-50

[Anonathy]

Here's the stolen boat in question, next to a Blue Moon 2, on the 15th of July, moored next to bridge 91 Grand Union, Simpson. Milton Keynes, so 6 days before it was reported stolen, that might also be the Blue Moon in question? I'll keep checking, I'd recognise them if I saw them I just hope I caught their faces on camera, sods law says I didn't. Hopefully this helps a little though. 

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, Cheese said:

This whole thing seems a bit odd. If I have got it right it looks like:

- widebeam Henry II and possibly 2 other boats stolen from around MK aroud 21 June

- can't find any mention in MK or any other news articles (and 3 stolen boats might be a big story?)

- there was/is a report on the London Boaters Facebook page on 23 June: https://www.facebook.com/groups/londonboaters/posts/10162338826626286/ . The original post is either deleted or restricted as I can't see it.  

The post is till there, I think that one was recovered but the OP didn't say how 

[Cheese]

9 hours ago, MtB said:

... His view was that it sounded a bit as though an insurance company might be subject to a claim they have reason to believe fraudulent but they can't prove it....

The same thought occurred to me, but I didn't want to cast nasturtiums, or whatever.

 

And having looked at the pictures of Henry II a bit more closely, with what looks like a very rough and ready repaint job, it might be worth rather less than £100,000

[MtB]

38 minutes ago, Cheese said:

And having looked at the pictures of Henry II a bit more closely, with what looks like a very rough and ready repaint job, it might be worth rather less than £100,000

 

Yes I thought that too. The underlying boat is probably closer to £50k than £100k from the photos. If the insurance claim is for £100k, the ins co have probably been thinking the same as us hence the show of effort in tracing where it is. Possibly. 

 

I can imagine a loss adjuster in an office thinking "No I'm not approving this £100k claim, let's spend some money finding this boat and hand it back instead of paying out". 

[Psycloud]

13 hours ago, Cheese said:

This whole thing seems a bit odd. If I have got it right it looks like:

- widebeam Henry II and possibly 2 other boats stolen from around MK aroud 21 June

- can't find any mention in MK or any other news articles (and 3 stolen boats might be a big story?)

- there was/is a report on the London Boaters Facebook page on 23 June: https://www.facebook.com/groups/londonboaters/posts/10162338826626286/ . The original post is either deleted or restricted as I can't see it. (Perhaps someone on FB can confirm?)

- Henry II reported as being towed by narrowboat Blue Moon

 - Blue Moon may or may nor be Que Sera Sera, reported stolen some years ago

- Matty saw the pair heading north on the GU (at Stowe Hill?) (date unknown)

- Anonathy also saw them (date, location and direction not yet disclosed)

- north of Stowe Hill a widebeam can only be in limited places: on the GU main line, or up to Watford or Hillmorton, or in a marina

- if lifted out, a 60x12 widebeam on a trailer is fairly unusual so might be expected to have been spotted or picked up on CCTV somewhere

- a loss adjuster is looking for Henry II, as there is probably a £100,000+ insurance claim raised, and there is a crime reference number

- no mention anywhere, or of anyone looking for, the other two boats the loss adjuster indicates were stolen. (Unless one of them is Blue Moon).

 

I work at a marina in this area.  Shortly after the boat went missing we have a visit from someone trying to find it.  They were specifically interested in whether our facilities had been used to crane it onto a lorry as they were well aware a widebeam of this size would be very easy to find if still on the GU heading north.  Needless to say it had not been craned out at our facility.

[Peanut]

To add to the aledged conspiracy theory.

Maybe it was being towed as the engine was beyond repair, and it would cost a Princely sum to fix.

 

[Tonka]

5 hours ago, Peanut said:

To add to the aledged conspiracy theory.

Maybe it was being towed as the engine was beyond repair, and it would cost a Princely sum to fix.

 

And replacement engines are very rare, they only come up once in a blue moon

[Peanut]

3 hours ago, Tonka said:

And replacement engines are very rare, they only come up once in a blue moon

Yet more difficult if you have no money.