Posting this because someone put in a lot of time and work building these three boats and this community reaches many areas.
https://www.mlive.com/news/2019/09/valuable-handmade-canoes-stolen-in-northern-michigan.html
Beautiful boats. I hope they catch them. Should be hard to sell those without attracting attention.
In this day and age, what I don’t understand is why anyone would ever take their eyes off their boats when they are out of storage. Even if you know there is no one around, you just never know what might happen.
I was out paddling one day and spotted a canoe with absolutely no one around. It looked to me like the canoe had washed up on shore and with the tide coming in, it was just about to drift away as I got to it. I pulled it up on shore where the tide wouldn’t take it and I called 911 to report it. While I was on the phone trying to explain to the 911 person where I was located and that took a while, I spotted a couple of people walking along the beach coming my way. Since this was on an island, I figured it might be the owners of the canoe. That turned out to be the case.
When I explained to the owners what I was doing and that I had saved their boat from drifting away, the male didn’t say a word. The female thanked me. I think the guy was either very embarrassed, or was an ***hole.
Our brother in law had a jet ski and power boat stolen from a locked storage unit on Lake Hartwell where they were stored for the winter. Neither were insured.
DUH!
A n outfitter i know used to recover flooded canoes that washed off of flooded docks. Salvage …
My first whitewater canoe got stolen from the side of the road where I left it after a park-and-play session for a 5-minute walk back to my car. I know it was a stupid thing to do, but I thought who is going to steal a 13’ whitewater canoe - someone did. I thought it might turn up at some point, but it never did. It’s probably collecting debris on the shore at someone’s lake house.
I suspect weight matters here.
I have an ultralight canoe that I keep out of sight here in the city (I have a back yard onto an alley) because it would take very little for someone to lift it up and realize how easy it’d be to take it.
I leave the two 16ft kayaks in sight, albeit over longer periods under a back deck, because they are fiberglass and even the one in the Elite layup is too heavy for someone to grab and run down the street with.
Back a number of years ago a couple friends of mine had their kevlar C1 race boats stolen. The clever thieves painted them black and figured no one would be able to tell. C1 race boats are pretty distinctive. They were caught a few days later with the boats on top of their car in the same town.
Friend’s son had a very nice mountain bike stolen when he left it unattended outside a store. Son was distraught…he had pieced it together over time and really liked it. When he learned that homeowner’s replacement value insurance was going to pay for him to buy a new bike, he wasn’t so unhappy any longer.
Just saying…
@lml999 said:
Friend’s son had a very nice mountain bike stolen when he left it unattended outside a store. Son was distraught…he had pieced it together over time and really liked it. When he learned that homeowner’s replacement value insurance was going to pay for him to buy a new bike, he wasn’t so unhappy any longer.Just saying…
I don’t think any amount of money can compensate for the hours and love spent building those beautiful stolen canoes.
My boats are covered under a separate marine rider in my homeowner’s policy and are easily replaceable. Those canoes aren’t.
There are so many long flatbed trailers, utility trailers, and motortoy enclosed trailers around here that it wouldn’t be difficult to transport even heavy, long canoes or sea kayaks. The good thing is that most locals don’t even know what a sea kayak is.
We still store them indoors, locked up. Once in a great while, we might load them and keep on the trailer overnight, but we also have LassoLocks, motion-detector lights, a video cam that alerts us via smart phone alert, game cams, a gate that has to be manually opened first, AND a narrow, curvy dirt road. Difficult to make a quick grab and go.
When we lived in the PNW, we never left kayaks unattended outside. Too many people were around, too many knew how valuable kayaks were, and the sea was sooooo near. Boats could have been on their way to Canada in less than 20 minutes. I sure hope those beautiful canoes are found unharmed, and returned. MI is close to Canada, too.