Watch out for a stolen boat

Julius K writes:
I'm a 24 year old fisho that's worked hard and dreamed for years of buying my first boat. After years of working overtime and looking around I finally bought a 3.5m tinny with 25hp Johnson, front steering, in March this year. My dreams had come true, I went fishing every spare minute I had with a couple of mates and we caught some some ripper fish (better then little mullet off the peir). I spent every day modifying it with swivel seats, made some pvc rod holders, a lot of time and effort anyway.

Early Friday morning (7 June) my tinny got pinched by some absolute ###### as#holes with no respect for other people's things. I had no insurance and am now regreting it. So I'm pleading to anyone that comes across a tinny with front cable steering and a white 25hp Johnson motor if someone tries to sell it to you and looks a bit dodgey please contact me and if the guys that stole it are reading this please return it, leave it on the front nature strip I'll even give you cash for it... no cops involved!!
(12 June 2002)

Travis writes:
Considering J.V. Marine and Jarvis Walker sponser this site maybe together they can set up a monthly report of stolen boats and motors to get sent to all boat shops and mechanics so that we can catch some of these bastards who cannot be bothered to buy there own. At some stage all of these stolen objects will be put in for servicing or repairs and with serial numbers can be easily identified... trust me I work in a boat shop. Not a week goes by when some poor fellow rings me to try and find his boat!!!
(12 June 2002)

David Grimshaw replies:
Just a comment to Travis re Julius K's misfortune in having his boat stolen. Club Marine publish photos of stolen boats in their mag each publication. This of course is only for boats that were insured through them. Certainly a central registry needs to come into being. NSW have the HIN system which requires all hull numbers to be registered. This requirement alone has reduced the incidence of theft. Other states are falling into line but then with stolen boats anyway they're not likely to be re registered. Sure are a lot of loopholes in the system :-(
(1 August 2002)

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