[PUP] Thieft

[bob Austin]

I wrote a personal note to Milt and Judy.  We spent 6 months in the Balarics
in 1984 and they were safe at that time.  One of the simplist alarms is a
"trip wire" of monfiliment, which is attatched to a plastic wedge (a small
section of a filler spreader) which held a normally closed microswitch open.
When any person pulled the wedge out of the microswitch a relay would be
closed and could set off any manner of alarms--strobe light, deck lights, and
horn or siren.  I have a portable unit, I have used for demostrations (it
works well for homes and neighborhood watches also).  This unit cost about
$50, including the microswitch, the relay and a siren.

We have a friend who built SS X frames for the hatches.  This is hinged, and
at the level of the lower lip.  It can be locked or just a thumb screw to hold
it in place.  Thus the hatch can be left open, and full ventiallation can
occur, but no thief can enter thru that hatch.

We used "real dogs"--which seemed to work well.  In Europe we had a camera
stolen by an American who came brazenly into the main saloon during the
evening.  I escorted him off the boat--but he still pinched the camera without
my knowing it.  (We kept a fish club, bear spray and machette at the
companionway as our first line of defense if necessary).
We had at least two board the boat in Split, Yugoslovia, the dog woke up, and
I came on deck with the Machette--the would be thiefs jumped off the boat and
ran very fast.  We also had some deck gear stolen at another port in
Yugoslovia--not easy to prevent that, other than to lock up all deck boxes
etc...

Bob Austin