Watercraft Security

This is intended to give advice and information on how to keep your craft safe. For specific details of the RJP policy cover in respect of theft click here.

A personal watercraft is an attractive possession. It’s very attractive to thieves as well but its attraction to a thief lies not in its graceful lines, its surging power or its latest colours, but in the ease with which many craft can be stolen!

How can you work to prevent this?

Firstly, never let it out of your sight – okay, so not practical but when you are away from home on a day out, plan ahead so that most of the time at least you don’t leave it unattended. Take a picnic, have a barbecue next to your craft but if you do “eat out” think about where you leave your craft and trailer. Clamp the trailer, lock the craft to it, park in view of where you are sitting, park in a well lit area, use your car or cars to block the trailer and craft in, chain it to something that the thief can’t drag away with it, go out and check up on it every 15 minutes and make a big thing of this, show the potential thief that you are being pro-active with security etc etc.

When you are leaving your craft overnight put it in a locked building, your policy will require you to do this when it’s at your home or the craft’s normal storage place.

Consider this :-

Let’s say the value of your craft is £6000. Would you put £6000 of used £10 notes in a locked suitcase, strapped to a trailer in your garage/building/shed, leave it overnight for days, weeks or months, relying on a “christmas cracker” padlock or the “high security” tin up and over garage door and expect to see it again? Especially if you had spent half an hour every week end on your drive in public view counting the money!

“No” is the correct answer!

Nor would you leave it on the roadside, in your garage, in the field at the end of the road or the resident’s carpark around the corner?

A personal watercraft is currency to thieves. If they see that you have one when you’re maintaining it on your driveway or coming back from the lake, they will take advantage of weak security or carelessness.