materials science!

[Baloo]

I am looking for ideas for a material or product i want to use for some modifications.

 

I want to improve security by removing the obvious leverage points on my doors where a crowbar could be used to pry them open.

 

my doors are folded steel doors...imagine a flattish tub of margerine with no lid...the plastic is the steel and the marg is layered sheets of plywood.

 

from the outside there is a rougly 3mm gap all the way round the edge of the doors, they hang flush with the cabin walls/ bow + stern bulkheads.

 

the hinges are welded on, split capsule type where the door can lift on and off two pegs once it has been opened past 90 degrees (so will clear the doors aperture in the hull)

 

on the cabin side there is the usual rain deflector strip above the side doors

 

One door on each set has an overlapping weather strip (6mm thick plate steel strip, full height of door, maybe 40mm wide or so, tack welded along the front of the door at the meeting edge side) which prevents rain ingress as well as restraining the other door whilst locked.

 

This is were a crow bar could easily be used,

I was thinking of putting a similar sized strip on the other door which would butt up side be side to the weather strip once slosed so as to protect that prying oppurtinity.

 

it might help if the material had some pliable - flexible characteristics, so as to achieve a snug fit without jamming.

 

maybe with clever positioning the surround to all edges of the doors and maybe even sliding hatches could be covered too, helping prevent water ingress to my internal timber work which has started to suffer in a few spots, and the resulting swelling is becoming slightly problematic.

 

other than steel, which i have no tools to cut or weld what alternatives could i use?

industrial rubber sealant strips of some sort?

there must be something sold in lengths on the market i could glue or screw on ( maybe even from the inside) which would be fairly resistant to attack with blades or hacksaw.

 

at the moment all door sets are secured by one pair of bolts fitted to one door only, the bow + stern have integral locks fitted in the layered ply, all doors have addittional hasp - staple - padlocks too (on the inside on the side doors, up onto the sliding hatches on the bow / stern.

 

[OldGoldy]

One door on each set has an overlapping weather strip (6mm thick plate steel strip, full height of door, maybe 40mm wide or so, tack welded along the front of the door at the meeting edge side) which prevents rain ingress as well as restraining the other door whilst locked.

 

This is were a crow bar could easily be used,

I was thinking of putting a similar sized strip on the other door which would butt up side be side to the weather strip once slosed so as to protect that prying oppurtinity.

 

it might help if the material had some pliable - flexible characteristics, so as to achieve a snug fit without jamming.

 

On the 'other' door, a narrow piece of angle, or channel will prevent a jemmy being used against the weatherstrip. If you can't weld this, then you can drill/tap/screw to the steel (and fill over the screw heads).

 

I can't offer any suggestion on the hinge sides, except, as you say, a snug-fitting hard rubber strip to close the gap.

 

One question, though, where is your boat to be moored? Marina, online public or offside? I ask this because there are likely two? types of thief about - the opportunist, who will not tackle anything that doesn't look easy, and the one who thinks - Ah! bloody big padlock, must be something worth having in here!

 

If you must use a padlock, then a 'disc' type or similar is best so that they can't get in with bolt croppers, but hasp/staples can be cut unless you use a sturdy cowl/cover. One of my friends uses only a decent mortice lock on the stern doors, all other security is built inside (bars), except the weatherstrip protection.

 

Think about protection for your slides, too!

 

Fit a flashing LED at each end of the boat - the thief will not be sure what it means and move on. This was the case when both my friends boat and mine were on the same online public moorings - other boats were attacked, ours weren't. Put a radio and a lamp on a timer for the dark hours.

 

How far should one go?

[Hairy-Neil]

Fit a Fogshield and just leave the doors unlocked......

 

clicky

[OldGoldy]

Fit a Fogshield and just leave the doors unlocked......

 

clicky

 

Good idea...............and this one's a little less expensive and a little more readily obtainable clicky

 

No doubt there are others!

[steelaway]

Hi

Why not just fit a steel bar across both doors. With lock loops at either end protruding through the bar.

 

Alex

[nb Innisfree]

Problem with any visible locking is that it advertises the fact that no one is aboard, as mentioned in one of my earlier posts better to fit hidden locking with perhaps extra 'dummy' padlocks left open to make boat look occupied.

Edited January 2, 2010 by nb Innisfree

[GBBS]

in our experience it is very difficult to keep out a determined thief, the more security you add the mmore damage they do getting in and in general they steal very little when they do get in

 

dave

[John Orentas]

In my experience it is not possible to improve on padlocks for rear doors preferably with the hasps and staples or whatever you choose to call the 'fixed' bits welded in place.. For timber front doors it is better to have them lockable from the inside of the boat for when the boat is left at it's mooring, bolts fitted to top and bottom of both doors, although a lower grade of security is OK for when you are just popping out to the pub, just using two of the bolts and a Yale type lock..

 

Sounds cynical but you should simply aim to make your neighbours boat a more attractive proposition that yours, most important is not to leave valuable items in view, TV sets and other electronic bits, though worth only a fiver in the pub but thieves will clear out your boat for a nights beer money..

 

A personal opinion this, but I always chose to leave all the curtains open, felons are invariably pretty stupid, when they see a closed and curtained boat they will imagine all kinds of desirables, stored or just lying about and the most attractive commodity of all is booze, cans, bottles you name it they will want to sup it.

Edited January 2, 2010 by John Orentas

[steelaway]

in our experience it is very difficult to keep out a determined thief, the more security you add the mmore damage they do getting in and in general they steal very little when they do get in

 

dave

 

 

 

 

DITTO!!!!

 

Alex

[bag 'o' bones]

I think most things have been covered elsewhere is the forum but i'll just chuck my ten penneth in.

 

Boats get broken into to steal the contents, therefore like others have said don't put things on view. Again if a thief is determined they will get in anyway, so don't force them to cause more damage than necessary to gain access. Think about it, if the boat moored temporarily in a relatively quite spot ( for example when most owners along the line are in the pub) there not likely to be disturbed so will have time to get through most forms of security.

 

I do think the smoke device is a good idea!

 

And one last thing, pad locks including disc locks - it takes between two and five minutes to get through one with a mini disc cutter attached to a battery powered dremel............

[OldGoldy]

.......... - it takes between two and five minutes to get through one with a mini disc cutter attached to a battery powered dremel............

 

Oh yeah? you know this, how?....

[Nickhlx]

We moor on a pontoon with mains available within 10 feet ... so about 1 minute to get in then ??

 

We just don't leave anything valuable on board now, except part bottles of whisky and other liqueurs / spirits, with various long term cyanide experiments being conducted - I will be hopping mad if anyone takes those - will set me back several months if those are stolen !

 

Nick

Edited January 2, 2010 by Nickhlx

[casper ghost]

I've been broken into twice.. Once they forced the front doors open, with apparently no trouble next the window was smashed. thieves will get in if they want and cause just little enough damage that you can't claim on insurance due to the excess.. I once lost my Dad's boat keys and broke his padlock with a mooring hammer and mooring pin. No one questioned me while I did this.

[KenK]

Unless your boat only has portholes the most vunerable points are the windows and there is not much you can do about those. If your boat is your home then its more of a concern but if it is your hobby then don't put anything on it you are not prepared to lose. That said narrowboat theft's are not that common, far less than vehicle theft and theft from houses. You can spend a fortune on crime prevention but most thieves are stupid and basic security will stop them.

 

Ken

[RLWP]

Unless your boat only has portholes the most vunerable points are the windows and there is not much you can do about those. If your boat is your home then its more of a concern but if it is your hobby then don't put anything on it you are not prepared to lose. That said narrowboat theft's are not that common, far less than vehicle theft and theft from houses. You can spend a fortune on crime prevention but most thieves are stupid and basic security will stop them.

 

Ken

The windows may be the most vulnerable, but the entry of choice still seems to be the doors. We were broken into via the rear doors.

 

Richard

 

Finched at Kingswood a few winters back

[David Schweizer]

The windows may be the most vulnerable, but the entry of choice still seems to be the doors. We were broken into via the rear doors.

 

Richard

 

Finched at Kingswood a few winters back

Mr Finch regularly gains access via the windows rather than doors. His favorites are the unmodified sliding types which can be opened very easily from outside by jiggling the latch until it drops. That is how he got into our boat, except that there were small locks which were not visible from outside, and his jiggling eventually shattered the glass.

 

Since the break in, I have made up some very visible timber ledgers which fit between the frame and the sliding sectiion making it impossible to move the window, even if the latch is "encouraged" to drop. They must have worked as the last time Mr Finch broke into several boats on our moorings, he left our boat alone.

[RLWP]

Mr Finch regularly gains access via the windows rather than doors. His favorites are the unmodified sliding types which can be opened very easily from outside by jiggling the latch until it drops. That is how he got into our boat, except that there were small locks which were not visible from outside, and his jiggling eventually shattered the glass.

 

Since the break in, I have made up some very visible timber ledgers which fit between the frame and the sliding sectiion making it impossible to move the window, even if the latch is "encouraged" to drop. They must have worked as the last time Mr Finch broke into several boats on our moorings, he left our boat alone.

 

I'm now even more convinced that we were visited by a fincher rather than the man himself. He broke in through the back, and when he left he didn't wash up his saucepan.

 

Richard

[John Orentas]

Mr Finch broke into several boats on our moorings, he left our boat alone.

 

 

I think I would be rather 'put out' it he missed me like that. "So what's wrong with my bloody boat then".

[bag 'o' bones]

Oh yeah? you know this, how?....

 

Locked the damned keys in the boat! Had no choice but to hack them off

Edited January 3, 2010 by bag 'o' bones