Yachting and Boating World forums: DSC Radio Stolen - Please watch out for it secondhand, and routine cal

About an hour ago I was awakened by a phone call on my mobile - picked up and it was Solent Coastguard calling to say they were getting DSC Urgency Alerts from Greyhound's MMSI, and could I shed any light on the situation. Rapidly getting dressed I told them that to the best of my knowledge she was locked in a yard in Old Portsmouth, and that I'd get down there post haste.

(As this is a direct copy of my post from RibNet, I should explain, Greyhound is my Ribtec 585 Rib)

Visions of Greyhound missing, and floating around out in the solent propelled me to Old Portsmouth rocket speed, where I found in the yard everything quiet, the cover secure on Greyhound, as I'd left it, and nothing seemingly amiss. Before calling the CG back, I looked under the cover, and where my radio used to be, there is but a hole!

I told the CG the good news, and asked them not to rescue the culprits unless they gave the radio back, and they kindly called the police for me. While waiting for the police I discovered nothing else missing (GPS, Flare Pack, Toolkit etc) however, the VHF Arial, it's mounting bracket, and all the cabling was also gone. No signs of any damage (bearing in mind it was dark).

The Police could do nothing more than give me an incident number, and the CG said the signal was too weak for direction finding, but that they've alerted every other CG to the fact the set is stolen, and are sending them repeated DSC alerts to try and make contact.

What I am asking you to do for me is to keep an eye out for any Standard Horizon Vertex's with Vitronix Raider Arials hitting the market (these guys were good - they even unscrewed the microphone clip!).

Also, if out and about on the water, please do position requests via DSC to MMSI 235035618, and if you get anything back, please let me know!

If you are a marine dealer, please look out for any Standard Vertex sets with that MMSI, and if you get any in for re-programming, hold onto it, and report it to the police as stolen property.

Cheers guys!