Stolen narrowboat - Chilton [***found***]

[MtB]

A big well done to the CRT guys who noticed the missing number etc and asked questions about the boat. Without their vigilance the theft might not have been noticed till the owner next went to his boat

Haggis

 

 

Yes, a very good point.

 

Also, big thanks due to the facebooker who saw it and took the photo and posted it.

[furnessvale]

Fabulous news.

 

May the person who took it stand in dog sh*t every day for the rest of their lives.

I must be a bad so and so. Seems to happen to me every day!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[junior]

Also highlights the positive power of Facebook.

[Dave Payne]

Well chuffed it's been found, can't stand thieves, hope now they get some prints of the boat and his prints are on record....

[nicknorman]

Great news. But it does beg a question about the security at the marina!

[ditchcrawler]

Great news. But it does beg a question about the security at the marina!

Unless you have someone on the gate and check every boat as it leaves the marina how do you stop it? At KB the main gate is electronic needing a blip to open it out of office hours for car access but that wouldn't stop someone climbing the fence.

[dave moore]

George

 

One of my favourite expressions was uttered by a student one one of my painting weekends years ago. He'd missed the chance to buy a Phil Speight video and commented

 

" Just my luck.....if I stood in dog shit, there'd be a nail in the middle of it! "

 

Dave

[haggis]

One of the reasons we like mooring at Streethay is that it is not a huge place and the staff seem to know who belongs to the boats moored there. I would like to think that if someone unknown to the guys was at a boat they would ask some questions.

Haggis

[nicknorman]

Unless you have someone on the gate and check every boat as it leaves the marina how do you stop it? At KB the main gate is electronic needing a blip to open it out of office hours for car access but that wouldn't stop someone climbing the fence.

Don't have experience of many marinas but certainly at ours, the carpark gate is locked but once you get in (which you can do from the towpath) there are locked gates to get you onto the actual pontoon.

 

It just seems to me that there are so many boats unattended on the towpath, why risk going into a marina to get one?

[MtB]

Don't have experience of many marinas but certainly at ours, the carpark gate is locked but once you get in (which you can do from the towpath) there are locked gates to get you onto the actual pontoon.

 

It just seems to me that there are so many boats unattended on the towpath, why risk going into a marina to get one?

 

 

Seems odd doesn't it. Maybe he had a key so it had to be that boat in particular...

[magnetman]

Maybe boats in marinas are less likely to have trackers fitted and also there may be less of a 'community spirit' than on the towpath. Also people can leave boats for more than 2 weeks in marinas whereas in theory one has to move every 14 days on the towpath.

 

I can see the logic.

 

Anyway

 

 

Its excellent that the boat has been found - a good advert for the internets ability to rapidly connect people and also a good advert for canal river trust

[the barnacle]

It just seems to me that there are so many boats unattended on the towpath, why risk going into a marina to get one?

 

i would think marina boats tend to be unoccupied for longer periods than tow path boats, then dissapear for the odd week so a boat going may not be recognised as unusual for a longer period.

[magnetman]

Cross posted with the barnacle

That's a very good point about usage patterns - would perhaps indicate a fairly organised person taking the boat.

[MtB]

Most marinas require a key to be lodged in the marina office. It would be interesting to know if the marina office in this case still has their key to this boat.

[magnetman]

 

 

Seems odd doesn't it. Maybe he had a key so it had to be that boat in particular...

Loads of questions like that could be asked but not really appropriate to do so on this forum imo

 

There is a crime number so let's leave the rozzers to do the work

[ditchcrawler]

 

 

Seems odd doesn't it. Maybe he had a key so it had to be that boat in particular...

I did wonder that

Most marinas require a key to be lodged in the marina office. It would be interesting to know if the marina office in this case still has their key to this boat.

Yes they do still have their keys

[Lysander]

Slightly puzzling that the boat, having been seen facing south at Penkridge, now seems to be on its way back whence it came - unless my geography is all up the spout. Had it not been for the licence and registration number having been removed and the name painted out, one might have suspected it had merely been 'borrowed'.

Very odd.

[mickp]

I came up the staffy sunday and saw 2 narrowboats moored bows on touching.they were at radford bank not the pubside but by the mini dealership and on there own.one was a newish nice boat the other was old scruffy and poor condition not a matching pair.guy on newer boat was large chubby chap. The only use this post has is the stolen boat may have a boat in convoy with it

[boathunter]

^ swap old ID onto new boat, dump old boat? People do the same with classic cars.

[Grassman]

The low-life thief was wearing overalls. The marina doesn't have workshop/dry dock facilities so people often have their boat taken out of the marina to have work done such as blacking and if anybody did happen to notice it going out I doubt they would query it.

 

Even with the gates locked that only restricts the entry by cars and it's easy to climb through or over the fence. There are 250+ boats in the marina and a fair bit of coming and going so it would be virtually impossible to prevent it happening, as would also be the case at most other marinas. Hopefully this was a 'one off'' but it nevertheless is a concern.

 

The main deterrent IMO is the likes of this forum as well as Facebook and other social media in that it's much harder these days for the thieves. The main problem would be for people who only visit their boat occasionally so it might not get noticed for weeks.Thank goodness Malcolm was aware of it so soon.

[cuthound]

Glad the boat has been found.

 

As others have said, shows the power of the internet in rapidly solving crimes of this type.

 

Hopefully no internal damage, but the OP will probably lose his NCD and have to claim for a repaint.

 

Hopefully the police can identify the scrote and bring him to justice (as long as it's not community service cleaning up towpaths!).

[Athy]

 

Hopefully the police can identify the scrote and bring him to justice (as long as it's not community service cleaning up towpaths!).

Would that be a bad thing? It sounds like a punishment which would fit the crime.

 

Has any motive yet been established? Perhaps simply what is known on the roads as joy-riding? Although you wouldn't give a car a partial repaint before taking it for a fun drive.

[bizzard]

Would that be a bad thing? It sounds like a punishment which would fit the crime.

 

Has any motive yet been established? Perhaps simply what is known on the roads as joy-riding? Although you wouldn't give a car a partial repaint before taking it for a fun drive.

Bit risky to paint it in the marina before they took off though, especially if they were conscientious painters and did it properly, fussy preparation, reading the instructions on the paint tin, adhering to drying times between coats, cleaning their brushes properly, ready for the next time, polishing it and leaving it to harden for a few days in case the new finish gets scraped by twigs when taking the boat out. All that would have taken them about three weeks. No, too risky, I reckon.

[DHutch]

Boat has been found by bridge 105 - CRT are in attendance - police are on their way - so are we but we live a long way away.

 

Huge thanks to everyone who has helped, but you'll appreciate there will be no more posts today.

 

Malcolm

 

Excellent work.

A big well done to the CRT guys who noticed the missing number etc and asked questions about the boat. Without their vigilance the theft might not have been noticed till the owner next went to his boat

 

 

That too.

 

 

 

Daniel

[MtB]

Loads of questions like that could be asked but not really appropriate to do so on this forum imo

 

There is a crime number so let's leave the rozzers to do the work

 

 

I strongly disagree. Do we have no interest in protecting our own boats from being stolen in a simiar way? If we have (and I suspect most of us have) then undrstanding the fine details of how it was done are crucial.

 

The more information the OP can give us about exactly what happened now he has his boat back, the better he is able to repay 'the boating community' for the help it has given him in tracking down his stolen boat. All in my personal opinion.