Boats worth $1 million stolen from Upland storage facility

San Bernadino Sun Daily Bulletin ^ | 9/3/2014 | Doug Saunders

[Pajamajan]

Upland>> Three boats worth $1 dollars are missing

[GYPSY286]

Missing boats, missing jetliners from Libya, what could possibly go wrong?

[RoosterRedux]

Smells like an insurance scam.

[Mamzelle]

Exactly my thought

[Cold Heart]

They could do a lot more damage in the ports or rivers.
I hope they are just meth heads, 9/11 is getting close,

[Starboard]

I understand your point but boats that sit and are not used become troublesome rust buckets. For example, raw water impellers can take on a “set” and can easily fail or disintegrate; fuel may become aged; engine manifolds corrode; batteries fail; shaft seals can go bad; diesel aftercoolers corrode; etc.

I could go on for a few more pages but you get the idea.

The terrorists might be able to run a muscle boat but when you’re running at high speeds there’s little margin for navigational error. You can ground the boat if you’re not extremely careful. Chartplotters help with navigation but many of the modern versions are multi-function and require some experience to properly use.

One other thing is that fuel consumption on large or fast boats is enormous and beyond what most non-boating people realize.

[novemberslady]

bkmk

[centurion316]

You have to consider repos as well

[JohnInSoCal]

Likely stolen for parts or sale. Engines and drives are what are so expensive on these things, don’t see any terrorist angle here.

[Cold Heart]

That also is possible. There was a lot of that following the 2007 market collapse.

[dancusa]

BOAT

B)reak

O)ut

A)nother

T)housand

[stillfree?]

Two best days for a boat owner? The day you buy it, and the day you sell it.

[Starboard]

I stopped throwing money into it. That method wasn’t sufficient to keep up with the rate of expenses. So I had to start heaving buckets of money into it. That seems to have solved the problem for time being. ;)

[cripplecreek]

My boat is ideal for me. Pretty much zero maintenance and it never leaves the lake so it doesn't even require registration.

[gleeaikin]

Not much storage needed for a mighty powerful blast of plastique. Up against a bridge piling, in a military harbor, the imagination boggles.

Almost 40 years ago my late husband bought a former Prohibition rum runner in the Atlantic City area. Man that boat had sleek lines and a V-8 pontiac motor installed. When you ran it up to full speed, the V shaped prow sprung out of the water as the boat tilted to a 30% angle. What fun. I could imagine the rum runners taking her out to the 12 mile limit and then creeping back to the marshes to unload for the AC casino business.

[no-to-illegals]

Hearing plane with Americans forced down in iran .... Got anything?

[Integrityingovt]

This could be one of several things. Terrorism is certainly a possibility. Having sold these boats, particularly the Fountains, you are looking at speeds in excess of 75 mph. There is plenty of cabin room down below to store explosives, easily a thousand pounds or so. Think the weight of five or six people. Also could have been stolen for parts. Take the engines and outdrives, strip out the other useful components and sink the hull. Third, could be to be used for human trafficking or drug smuggling. Big problem in FL over the last five to 10 years, with smugglers using boats like this to smuggle illegals in. Think about shoving 20-25 people on a boat like this at $2,500 a head and doing that for a couple of months. You can do the math. We had one of our Fountains stolen from the dealership on a holiday weekend and despite the best efforts of the police, marine police in several states and a client with a private plane flying up and down the Chesapeake Bay looking for the boat we never found it.

[woodbutcher1963]

Exactly, a boat without an engine is just a sailboat without a sail.

[ladyjane]

Remember the TWA 800 that was ‘shot down’ over water while it was taking off from Kennedy. At first they were looking for a boat that launched the missile. Then they said it was the center fuel tank.

[no-to-illegals]

report from cnn?