Hi community, some lowlife has stolen my van from my home address in Sunshine Coast QLD, with all me windsurfing gear.

The van is a Mercedes Sprinter extra-long, with distinctive features of mag wheels, solar panels and fitted out as a camper.

Gear:
- KA wave sails 3.3, 3.7, 4.0, 4.2, 4.7 x 2, 5.3, 5.8
- KA speed sails 5.2, 6.2, 7.5
- 4 carbon booms, Severne enigma 140-190, Maui Sails 140-190 with black grip, KA 150-200, KA 170-220
- about a dozen masts and two carbon mast-bases
- Severne Nano 83 Starboard Kode 86, Futura 111, Isonic 74, Mistral Lockwood speed.

wish you good luck , hope you can recover your stuff

Any updates?

The only update is ... I had too much windsurfing gear.

Not so far.

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Really sorry Mathew!

Let us know if and when it comes back!

Everyone will be looking out for your gear now and your van isn't easy to hide.

That sucks, will keep an eye out down south if they got adventurous. I do hope it ends up a happy story. Feel your pain.

Hope you get it back or can claim insurance. That sucks big time

That's so ****, Im an optimist and sure it will turn up. Mind you the only board I've ever had stolen was a Ken Dures wave board yoinked off my trailer literally whilst I was moving in to a new flat at Ashmore it had very distinctive graphics and my name on the stringer I was convinced it would show up never did

Thanks everyone - no further news. Have started the process to put in an insurance claim.
Listing here the windsurf gear that went walkabout, just in case someone comes across it.

Boards:
- Starboard Futura 111 - older shape
- Starboard Isonic 74 - speed edition
- Mistral Lockwood Speed - small
- Severne Nano 83 - 2020 model
- Starboard Kode 86 thruster

Sails:
- KA Koncept's 2020 or newer: 7.5m, 6.2m, 5.2m
- KA Kamakazie (wave) 2020 or newer: 5.8m, 5.3m, 2x 4.7m, 4.2m, 4.0m, 3.7m, 3.3m
- KA Kross (freeride) 2021 or newer: 6.3m, 6.8m

Booms:
- Severne Enigma 140-190
- Maui Sails slalom carbon 150-200
- KA Race 170-220

Masts:
- OceanMotion FibreTube 100% carbon: 340, 355, 2x 370, 3x 400, 3x 430, 460
- Sunshine 70% ultra-rdm: 400

Extensions
- Goya RDM carbon 40cm
- Goya RDM carbon 30cm

... and lots of bits like
- various Lockwood fins,
- spare footstraps,
- adjustable harness lines,
- carbon batten tubes and rods
- SDM and RDM cams
- SUP paddles,
- ... etc

And all the nice camping toys like solar+lithium+hot-water+kitchen+fans+bed+gazebo.
And rock-climbing gear.
And off-road-recovery gear.

Devastating, feel for you. Alway worries me when out sailing as most of my gear lives in the van.
How can the rest of us avoid this with electronic keys, keysafe, waterproof pouch, or does nothing work???

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ducati said..
Devastating, feel for you. Alway worries me when out sailing as most of my gear lives in the van.
How can the rest of us avoid this with electronic keys, keysafe, waterproof pouch, or does nothing work???

I think there are some tracking devices with gps that can befitted to the car

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ducati said..
Devastating, feel for you. Alway worries me when out sailing as most of my gear lives in the van.
How can the rest of us avoid this with electronic keys, keysafe, waterproof pouch, or does nothing work???

Most modern vehicles need the specific key because they are "encoded" in some manner - in my van's case, the computer wont start without the serial-no of the key matching the computer. So in my situation, those "nice friends" decided to find my van key by entering home while I was sleeping (attempting entry via at least 3 different access points), then hunting around for the the electronic key (because it was covered in some paperwork, in my office area).

As noted elsewhere, I am now looking at gps-trackers. I looked for one about a 18months ago, but it was going to need a $50 per month telco bill. When you weigh up the cost of per-year-insurance vs per-year-data, at what point does it become valuable to install the gps-tracker (?) ... I dont have an answer because everyone's case needs to be decided by themselves.

But I will note that transmitter-detectors are cheap, which is both a good and bad thing,
a/ if someone can detect the gps-tracker because it is sending out the vehicle location, then it can easily be found and removed
b/ conversely if the tracker is detected, the nice-friend may instead leave the vehicle alone.

I am now going to be testing out a couple of trackers - there are enough people in the windsurfing community with too much to loose... when I feel I have some confidence in them, I will post an update.

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ducati said..
Devastating, feel for you. Alway worries me when out sailing as most of my gear lives in the van.
How can the rest of us avoid this with electronic keys, keysafe, waterproof pouch, or does nothing work???

When I am at the beach, I put my car-key in one of those key-safes... not ideal, but I think that is the best we have available in that situation. I haven't tried to brute-force them, so I dont know how strong they are...

aside... I do think there is a market for one of those key-safes which also contains a movement sensor and siren which alerts when suitable. It would need to be waterproof obviously. And bigger than current models, so that it can actually fit a modern electronic-key.

Hi Matt Bummer U havent found your van and Gear.
Snides and Cheryl moved to Karratha in Jan and their first night there the house was broken into and the got the keys for the hilux and Iload. Van written off with a blown turbo and lucky the Hilux didnt have any fuel in it so they only got a short time thrashing it.
Lesson is Hide your keys or sleep on them!!!!!!!!!!

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mathew said..

ducati said..
Devastating, feel for you. Alway worries me when out sailing as most of my gear lives in the van.
How can the rest of us avoid this with electronic keys, keysafe, waterproof pouch, or does nothing work???

When I am at the beach, I put my car-key in one of those key-safes... not ideal, but I think that is the best we have available in that situation. I haven't tried to brute-force them, so I dont know how strong they are...

aside... I do think there is a market for one of those key-safes which also contains a movement sensor and siren which alerts when suitable. It would need to be waterproof obviously. And bigger than current models, so that it can actually fit a modern electronic-key.

Can a key-safe be attached with an alarmed padlock, www.kovixaustralia.com.au/product/kpz-10-alarmed-padlock/ I use the same brand hitch lock on my caravan and it's the duck's nuts www.kovixaustralia.com.au/product/ktr-18-alarmed-trailer-lock/

If you have a 2" hitch one of these are great, www.ebay.com.au/itm/121066845741 I've had one for a few years and think it's fairly secure.

Of course none of the above will work if the p#*#ks brake into your home

The alarmed padlock seems like a good idea, BUT:

Make sure the key compartment will accept your key. My key is 50mm long by 35mm wide and just barely fits into the compartment of my lock.

Found this out the hard way.

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mathew said..
As noted elsewhere, I am now looking at gps-trackers. I looked for one about a 18months ago, but it was going to need a $50 per month telco bill. When you weigh up the cost of per-year-insurance vs per-year-data, at what point does it become valuable to install the gps-tracker (?) ... I dont have an answer because everyone's case needs to be decided by themselves.

But I will note that transmitter-detectors are cheap, which is both a good and bad thing,
a/ if someone can detect the gps-tracker because it is sending out the vehicle location, then it can easily be found and removed
b/ conversely if the tracker is detected, the nice-friend may instead leave the vehicle alone.

I am now going to be testing out a couple of trackers - there are enough people in the windsurfing community with too much to loose... when I feel I have some confidence in them, I will post an update.

I know it sounds a bit odd, but I had a GPS tracker for my dog in case she got away from me. It was 'tractive', but I haven't used it for a while. The subscription obviously includes the telco service, but being just for pets there is nothing other than tracking it and getting it to make a sound.

You can get cheap 'Telstra' prepaid sims on Boost too if that keeps the price down for another solution.

Also, if you want extra security in the future, can you still get keypad immobilisers? I know they started using them when WRXs were getting stolen at knife/gunpoint, the idea being that you hope the thief doesn't know they need a pin and get that from you too.

air tag?

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TerryA said..
Hi Matt Bummer U havent found your van and Gear.
Snides and Cheryl moved to Karratha in Jan and their first night there the house was broken into and the got the keys for the hilux and Iload. Van written off with a blown turbo and lucky the Hilux didnt have any fuel in it so they only got a short time thrashing it.
Lesson is Hide your keys or sleep on them!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no - I remember speaking to Snides over Xmas... they both were looking forward to the move north.

As it turns out, another two vehicles were taken from my suburb, within the next two weeks -> a house-break-in to get the vehicle keys, and other stuff taken too.

I like those Kovix alarmed-locks... never seen them before. I have something similar for my motorbike, which bolts through the brake-disc. It never occurred to me that a plain old padlock might have an alarm.

I have sent off a query to Kovix, asking if they have considered an alarmed-key-safe.

See new thread - the van has turned up !

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mathew said..
I like those Kovix alarmed-locks... never seen them before. I have something similar for my motorbike, which bolts through the brake-disc. It never occurred to me that a plain old padlock might have an alarm.

I have sent off a query to Kovix, asking if they have considered an alarmed-key-safe.

Following up on this - Kovix responded to my email inquiry...

"It is good idea and I will give your feedback to the factory for product development."

so hopefully something comes of it.