Have you ever thought how strange it is to park your boat out in the open (on a mooring or on a pontoon) with just a rope tying it to the bouy or dock? An expensive and precious item that may cost anywhere from £10,000 to £200,000 is left outside with the best anti-theft properties of a piece of rope. We all lock our cars and houses and have alarms fitted to both in case a chavy yob wants to burn rubber while doughnutting in the car park of DFS or a drug fuelled gang wants to lift our sky plus box or 42″ plasma TV to fuel their habit.
We are a trusting bunch, us sailing types. Friendly and welcoming (unless holding position at a mark when we become loud, aggressive and nasty of course) and love being out on the water with friends and family sharing our passion. Long may that continue I say.
But the reality is that things do go missing. Boats are stolen and other, more easily pinched, items disappear. The auxiliary outboard, the inflatable, the jet ski or the life-raft can all quite easily be stolen. We can chain and padlock the easily movable items. We can put a wheel clamp on the trailer of the jet ski, RIB or dinghy. These might deter a speculative thief so it’s a good idea to do this and be cautious, but anti-theft devices don’t always prevent theft if the thief is determined to get away with your possessions.
Each year in the UK alone, the number of stolen cars, motorcycles, boats, caravans, motor homes, HGV’s and plant machines, exceeds 300,000.
Help is at hand with a very clever device called the M-track. It’s small, completely wireless, lasts several years between battery changes and can be mounted just about anywhere. It’s clever because it works under cover so if your outboard or jet ski is stolen and hidden in a garage or lock up (which is likely) the item can still be found.
There are a couple of types of M-track, and the most advanced (M-track PRO) has multiple types of communication and tracking, including GPS, GSM, GPRS, RF, SMS. M-track PRO is ideal for boats that are kept outside on moorings or in marinas while the standard M-track GSM is perfect for more easily moved and hidden items.
M-Track Device
If you have a device installed on your boat (you can install it easily yourself) it can be located via the mobile phone network with an accurate GPS position and then returned to you. When you buy the device you also take out a service contract and should anything go missing, you ring the call centre and they do everything else. They’ll locate the stolen item and liaise with law enforcement to recover your things. It’s very simple and the manufacturers boast a 98% success rate.
If you want to see that the tracking actually works, check out this news item from SKY News where an M-Track device was used to track a broken TV from a refuse centre in Basingstoke to Nigeria (it was illegally transported and SKY was able to prove it with the M-Track). It really does work! : Click Here.
The standard M-track GSM is £265 and the M-track PRO is £395 on Harbour Exchange or BoatGoblin.com. This is the best price on the web – guaranteed and is for the purchase of the device. The service contract is £130 per year which is provided directly by the monitoring company. Don’t worry about a thing though as Harbour Exchange or BoatGoblin will make sure it’s all smooth sailing.
To read more about M-Track or purchase, you can follow the links below:
M-Track GSM on Harbour Exchange or BoatGoblin.com
M-Track PRO on Harbour Exchange or BoatGoblin.com
PS. There are a few excellent additional benefits to having an M-Track device
- Lower insurance premiums as the device is Thatcham approved
- GPS tracking (PRO only) for races and voyages
