Several years ago
a husband-and-wife crew who’d been serving aboard a 102-footer
for many years without incident suddenly found themselves in an unfamilar
and uncomfortable situation.
It was late at night,
and the two were sound asleep in their stateroom on the upper deck when
a thud jolted them awake. More sounds of thumping and rustling seemed
to come from the boat deck just a few hundred steps from their room.
With no way to determine what was happening other than to carefully
venture outside, the husband grabbed a flashlight and baseball bat he
kept beneath the bed and quietly made his way aft to investigate. Upon
reaching the boat deck, he noticed the normally tied-down cover to the
tender was unlashed. Although his heart was pounding, he had the presence
of mind to shout a few choice words and bang the tender with the bat.
In seconds he was face to face with an unkempt and, quite possibly,
dangerous stowaway. A few more shouts and some threatening motions with
the bat, and the husband successfully convinced the intruder to leave
the yacht.
While history thankfully
didn’t repeat itself with this yacht or her owners, the fact remains
that it’s just one example of the issues facing owners of all
sizes of vessels today. Some people, it seems, are under the impression
that only those individuals who want to explore remote regions need
to be concerned about onboard security. True, the chances of encountering
pirates is greater in Southeast Asia and parts of South America, but—and
this is an important but—you can encounter intruders of all kinds
in ports all over the world, including stateside. In fact, the above-described
encounter happened in Nice, France, in a marina that the yacht had visited
countless times. And some owners can tell you stories of thefts of expensive
electronics and fishing gear that took place while their boats were
tied up behind their homes.
So how do you protect
yourself against violations of your property as well as potential harm
to your friends and family while they’re aboard? Just as there
are systems for home security, there are a variety of electronic-based
yacht-security systems, ranging from relatively simple units to complex
systems.
Step onboard nearly
any large yacht at a boat show, and you’ll see perhaps the most
common application: small television monitors in the pilothouse that,
with either black-and-white or color displays, reveal any activity in
key areas, thanks to tiny hidden cameras. These closed-circuit television
systems (CCTVs) are often integrated so that you or a crew member can
keep an eye on, say, the aft deck and both side decks simultaneously
while you’re sitting in the pilothouse. Walter Pullens, vice president
of sales for Florida-based security company Maritron, recommends placing
cameras at “all points where people could enter your boat without
someone seeing them.” For example, on most boats and yachts this
would mean the port and starboard decks as well as aft; on megayachts
Maritron has additionally installed cameras on the masts and the upper
decks.
As helpful as CCTV
systems are, however, not all are designed to keep watch on unauthorized
personnel. After all, a camera ceases to be helpful if it has a fixed
field of view that a person can avoid. That’s where digital video
tracking comes in. Pullens says this system is unique to Maritron. It
has installed various types of security systems onboard vessels ranging
in size from a 50-foot Hatteras to megayachts like the 316-foot Limitless
and, in fact, says it does so in a way that distinguishes between intruders
and authorized personnel—even your family pet—to reduce
the chance of false alarms.