Sadly my yacht Warlock was broken into while on its mooring at Shoalhaven Heads some tome between 2 - 10 May. They stole a safety grab bag and its contents, and two EPIRBS (One Expired) a PLB, 3 point harness and some tools. The Police have some leads ie security footage of the idiots trying to sell the EPIRBs plus other yacht gear to Nowra Pawnbrokers plus an address of a house where the PLB was activated for a short period last week. Hopefully the 'perps' will be caught soon.
I had a quick look around the other nearby boats to see if they also had been broken into. Nothing stood out but you can only see so much from the dingy. Port Kembla Water Police will be sending a boat down in the next few days to do a detailed inspection of all vessels moored at Shoalhaven Heads. I hope there are no other victims of theft!

That's a bummer TK, hope they catch the dickheads. Always leaves a sour taste when this kind of thing happens to you.

TKNick said..
Only a little damage to the Perspex slider. Will now be looking to upgrade security is lights, alarm system.

You could always look at installing a trek transponder, I did when it happened to me!

UncleBob said..

TKNick said..
Only a little damage to the Perspex slider. Will now be looking to upgrade security is lights, alarm system.

You could always look at installing a trek transponder, I did when it happened to me!

And yes it does work! No connection just a happy customer/client.

PM 'd

crustysailor said..

ttransponder said..
Hello UncleBob,
Hello All,
UNfortunately these events are becoming more common.
Trek Transponder monitors the status of your boat (position, batteries, bilge, etc...) and also can connect to sensors on doors/hatches or movement sensors.
Feel free to visit our website for pricing and more information.

Sorry to hear of your news TK, at least it sounds like little damage was done when they were breaking in.

An alarm can give you some peace of mind at least.

Since the Trek has been mentioned, ttransponder (or Trek) do you have any news on the updates for it for it regarding:
- Solar Panel monitoring: so that the SP input doesn't have to be treated as a battery source input, which then sends an alarm that night when it's charge drops below 13.6V?
- relabelling of inputs: so status SMS tells you ""solar panel"" instead of "battery 3"" for example
- erroneous 'Distance from home" alarms: > 25 metres on a swing mooring?

The Trek Transponder designed for yachts has a dedicated Solar Panel input that doesn't alarm when the volts get too low at sunset. If a solar panel is put on a battery input it will alarm when the voltage drops below 12.2V or 24.4V for a 24V boat (of course!). All other models have an option for an extra voltage input (without alarm) for measuring anything (including solar panels). But it needs to be requested at order time (but can be retrofitted).

Renaming has been a feature since January 2018. ie. Fridge can be renamed Beer :-)

Re GPS accuracy, we have had issues with boaties who forget their 10m boat swings 10m on their mooring then complain they get movement alarms. If the Trek is in the middle of the boat BINGO! theres 15m movement. In fact the GPS engine is one of the best in the world but boaties who want precision usually never spend the $$$ to add the external antenna to get it instead put the unit in a cupboard somewhere on the boat expecting magic with a weak signal full of reflections and multipaths. External antenna is needed for precision or good sky view.

The other issue is maybe down link errors. With usual GPS or phone you dont notice odd errors because you look again and the error has gone. But the Trek electronically monitors GPS position every second of every hour of every day - 24/7 and when an error occurs you really notice.

Read here gpsinformation.net/multipath.htm

TKNick said..
I want to give the Port Kembla Water Police a thank you for their professionalism and effort in investigating my break in. During thethe week they identified one of the thieves and recovered some of my kit.

Great Result!! now all you have to do is keel haul them