Widebeam canal and river cruiser sailer Ian Buchanan has kindly written in with a scenario that will be familiar to many boat owners…
‘It was almost dawn on a chilly December weekend morning. Still in my pyjamas I hear the house phone ring: ‘Hello I am a dog walker and just passed your widebeam and its been broken into. One of your boat’s windows is smashed.’
‘Thanks everso, I said. And rapidly threw on some clothes and headed off to our treasured nature reserve mooring.
‘While I was on the way my wife rang the local police and they said they’d quickly send forensics from twenty miles away, which seemed impressive.
‘I didn’t have to wait long. I met the police man in a van at the Reserve’s gate and we went aboard to view the carnage.
‘All the tinned food had gone and my treasured booze cupboard was empty bar one small bottle.
‘I said to the forensic guy: ‘Look over there on the floor near the sink, is that blood?’
‘”Wow, DNA,” I thought “we’ll catch the bastards.”
‘The forensics guy looked at it. “No, that’s not quite the right colour,” he said.
‘I won’t tell you what was in that bottle beyond giving you the clue that it was what my parents used to make their gin go pink… The varmints, obviously of a younger generation, didn’t like it one bit and must have spat it out on the floor…
‘As it turned out, there was no usable forensic evidence to collect: no finger prints and no clues, and the robbers were not caught – but they also visited three other nearby cruisers and took leisure batteries, expensive river fishing gear and even an inverter.’
Thanks Ian – yup, it’s a common enough problem that we can all relate to. I hope it doesn’t happen again!