From Marine Guard
Nav-Tracker Tracks Stolen Boat In The Bahamas
HydraSport Recovered 8 Hours Later
FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA (USA) - A 33-foot HydraSport equipped with the Nav-Tracker 1.0 wireless boat location and GPS tracking system from Paradox Marine, stolen from Treasure Cay in the Bahamas in the early morning hours last Wednesday (July 14), was located by the system and recovered in Bimini by authorities about eight hours later.
“There is no question that without Nav-Tracker, my boat would have never been found,” said Jose Mas, the owner. “I had just installed the system two weeks before and I was amazed at being able to track the boat and follow the thieves. In addition to the technology, the customer service provided by Paradox Marine in tracking my boat real time from theft to recovery was amazing. Everyone at Treasure Cay in the Bahamas was talking about an owner tracking the boat as it was stolen. Hopefully, more boat owners will install the Nav-Tracker to help deter boat thieves,” he added.
Paradox Marine’s Nav-Tracker 2.0 with an infrared beam sensor and a siren was responsible for protecting a second boat the same night - some 15 miles away from Treasure Cay, in the Marsh Harbor area. The owner received an ‘in alarm’ message from their boat as the thieves were trying to steal it. After the siren went off, the would-be thieves took off.
Last year, Paradox Marine received a service medal from the U.S. Coast Guard in recognition of the role Nav-Tracker 2.0 played in the recovery of a Contender stolen in the Bahamas in September, 2008. As many as 27,000 boats are stolen annually and the odds of recovery are only about 1 in 10, according to the International Association of Marine Investigators.
Nav-Tracker 2.0
When a Nav-Tracker 2.0 transmitter is mounted discreetly on a boat and armed, a wireless ‘fence’ with a 500-meter range can be created. If a boat is moved outside of this fence, Nav-Tracker 2.0 uses Inmarsat based GPS satellite technology to monitor a boat’s location and notify up to four people by email and/or text message every 15 minutes with the latitude/longitude, speed, heading and distance to closest city.
The message transmitted from Nav-Tracker on board the HydraSport when it was stolen would have been similar to this:
Message From Nav-Tracker
User: Paradox Marine
Asset: M/Y Island Time
Fleet: ETI
Date/Time: 2006-07-25 15:06:28 (EDT)
Event: Geo-fence breached;
Location: 26.05767,-80.1303.3 (0.75 mi NE of Hollywood, FL 33019)
Speed/heading: 9.2 Knots, 144 deg
Google Earth Map: [KML]
Some insurance companies now offer premium discounts or require GPS tracking devices to be installed on certain types of boats, including high performance boats and boats with triple high-horsepower outboards.
