South Beach Boat Stolen and Recovered — Again!
When we left off the story of South Beach Yacht Club’s stolen RIB, Mackin, on Wednesday, club members had recovered the boat in Gashouse Cove and the suspect was still at large. But that all changed. What follows is excerpted from rear commodore Wendy Hanrahan’s report to the members.
She received a call from Chris Naughton of a fellow South Beach Harbor tenant, the Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors, at 7:44 p.m. on Thursday, May 28. “He told me that Drew Harper said that the Mackin is at Anchorage #9. I’m like, ‘No way! I just retrieved the bloody boat yesterday! This has to be a mistake.’ He said to call Wade from TowBoatUS. So I did. I asked, ‘Do you have the Mackin?’ He said yes, he has it and he’s towing it to Pier 40.”
“Terry said let’s just go down to the boat and check everything out. I called the police as we headed toward Pier 40. The person who answered said that the police were already down at the dinghy dock. When we arrived at the dinghy dock TowBoatUS was there with the Mackin side-tied to their boat with two officers there.” The TowBoatUS guys told Hanrahan that they’d had a call from the USCG to help a disabled boat around Anchorage #9. “They found a guy who looked skitterish on the Mackin. Looking at the man, they didn’t think he was capable of paying the tow fee. They thought the Mackin belonged to Drew Harper, so they called him. The TowBoatUS guys also called the police to meet them at Pier 40. The men tried talking to the guy to keep him there until the police arrived. The police had a very difficult time finding the dinghy dock when they were up on the Pier 40 blacktop parking lot.
“The thief heard one of the fellows trying to tell the police how to find them, and he ran away. The police then started questioning me about the Mackin. I told them that it was stolen Sunday and I retrieved it Tuesday. They asked if I had a police report. I said I was in the middle of the online police report when I paused because I didn’t have the boat model, engine information, CF number and vessel ID number. I was booted off the police report for being dormant for more than five minutes. So no, I did not fill out a police report. I told the police that I had a photo of the thief from Sunday.”
SBYC’s commodore, Cat Reining, arrived, and the police left. “I went up to Pier 40 storage to retrieve the spare battery so we could jumpstart the boat. It’s dark in the shed, and I don’t see well in the dark. I was trying to open the lock when Terry called me from the entrance of the Pier. I told him where I was and he started walking toward me as I fiddled with the lock.
“In front of the BAADS storage area, Terry finds a man hiding behind a pillar. He looks at the guy and shouts, ‘Wendy, it’s the thief!’ He starts fighting with the man, and I’m running very poorly in my flip-flops toward them. Terry tackles the guy and puts him face down on the ground and sits on him.
“I’m yelling for Cat out on the dock to come help, and I’m calling 911 to tell the police to hurry back. As I’m on the phone I can hear Terry tell Cat to tie the thief’s legs together with the jumper cables he was carrying. I’m running (very poorly still) out of the pier shed to wave the police to come inside to the Pier storage. I was hoping it would be the same two officers that would be coming, and luckily they were. So no lengthy explanation of the history. They came to get the thief from Terry, and Cat and asked how we got him. I’m explaining the story and answering their questions.”
“In the meantime, Terry discovers that it wasn’t the battery that died on the boat. The thief screwed around with the ignition. Then the police officer comes back to me and says, ‘We need the photos from the boat now. We need proof that he is the one that took the boat today.’ The TowBoatUS fellows could not come back to ID him.”
Hanrahan called Dave Corbin to come and retrieve the photos. “As everything was wrapping up, the policeman said that the thief wasn’t right and they were taking him to the hospital. He said that after the hospital he most likely will be released. But they have his photos and the two police reports that he stole the boat. He asked if I wanted to put a stay away order on him. This means he has to stay 100 yards away from Pier 40. I immediately said yes.”
The Mackin went to H&M Services in Sausalito. Patti Mangan, SBYC’s membership officer, says that the RIB is “likely a total loss.”
How does “fiddling with the ignition” make it a total loss? Must be more to the story.
Wow crazy story! Total loss? It’s floating right?
“… after the hospital he most likely will be released.” Another example of why we are having so many nasty things going on at this time. No matter what someone does there is no punishment/accountability.
Have you checked the price of Protector replacement parts lately?
We received this update from South Beach Yacht Club on June 18: “H&M could not do any diagnostic service without the engine running,” wrote Wendy Hanrahan. “So because the boat wouldn’t start, we had to replace the starter that the thief burned out. Once the starter was replaced, H&M said that the thief ran out of gas, which was why he was drifting. Running out of gas was actually in our best interest as the thief left the flushing port open when he went for his joyride. If he had not run out of gas, he would have overheated the engine, which would have been a much bigger problem than replacing the starter. Plus he fried the water pump. The Mackin engine has now been repaired, and Dan Courter and his crew brought the Mackin home to South Beach. The chaps still need to be repaired from the first joyride. Hopefully, a canvas person will be able to fix that soon.” So the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been.