Stolen Boat Recovered with Tracking Device

January 5, 2009
Boating News Archive

Tracking Device Leads Florida Sheriff's Department To Stolen Boat Within 60 Minutes

 Fort Lauderdale, Florida (USA) - A 35-foot Fountain equipped with the Nav-Tracker 2.0 wireless boat location and GPS tracking system from Paradox Marine helped the Broward County, Florida Sheriff's Department recover the $200,000 boat within 60 minutes on Saturday (January 3).

   Boat owner Alberto Verdesi had installed the Nav-Tracker system in October. About 6 am ET on Saturday morning, Nav-Tracker sent a text message to Verdesi's cell phone that his boat was on the move without his permission and where it was headed. He called the Broward Sheriff's Department, which dispatched a helicopter to locate the boat. When the helicopter flew over the location, the thieves ran off, but the $200,000 boat was recovered in good shape.

   When a Nav-Tracker 2.0 transmitter is mounted discreetly on a boat, a wireless 'fence' with a 500-foot range is 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 and heading.

   As many as 27,000 boats are stolen annually, according to the International Association of Marine Investigators. "Alarms and other deterrents are not enough. However, with Nav-Tracker on board, if your boat is stolen, there's a very good chance you'll get it back," said Jay Keenan, Paradox Marine Vice President of Marketing.

   Some insurance companies now require GPS tracking devices to be installed on certain types of boats, including high performance boats and boats with triple high-horsepower outboards.

   For more information about Nav-Tracker 2.0 and other Paradox Marine boat security, monitoring and tracking products, visit www.paradoxmarine.com or call 1+954-565-9898.