There has been something of a spike in dinghy and outboard thefts in the BVI of late… The thing is, there always seems to be a spike of dinghy and outboard theft at any given moment somewhere in the Caribbean so it deserves a certain amount of thought.
Outboards are expensive these days, times are hard, and there seems to be an unending number of people more than willing to pay cash for an outboard when the opportunity arises to buy one cheap. Just the sort of recipe to make stealing dinghies and outboards a popular and lucrative pastime.
My basic approach to the problem is to have a dinghy and outboard that do not appeal to folks who steal them. For instance, there seems little interest in outboards of 5HP or less or hard dinghies… Hence a hard dinghy with a 3.5HP outboard is pretty much theft proof. Of course, a dinghy with oars and no motor at all is sort of the ultimate no-theft rig around.
Even better if it needs some paint…