5 sigma walked away last night and didn't return...

[hackish 8]

I wish it was a joke with a great punch line...

Last night someone forced their way into our gear container ( sea can) and made off with 5 complete sigma and micro sigma rigs. Although I'll post serial numbers in the stolen gear database, I was wondering how often stolen gear is ever recovered?

I would hope alarm bells go off when a non- skydiver tries to sell tandem rigs with no pax harnesses, but who knows when or where they might go up on the market. I hope they appear in the capital region Canadian kijiji forums as it be easier to solve.

[gowlerk 2,198]

Ouch. One of my biggest worries. I'd say your best bet is a very splashy social media offer of a decent sized no questions asked reward. They will be nearly impossible to sell. Except maybe overseas.

[fluffyduckie 6]

There is a stolen gear page on FB, I'd recommend posting there. While some people may still use the database here, I think you will get more exposure on social media.

The for sale and rigging pages are also a good way to get many more eyes out there looking.

Most of the people I know who have recovered stolen gear, have found it shortly after the break in (usually a car,) by searching nearby dumpsters, when the thieves realize a rig is not a fancy computer bag and dump it.

Your situation sounds fairly targeted. Sale pages, Craigslist, and eBay may turn up something.

Unfortunately you have a very wide net to cast to try to recover the gear. I'm sorry this happened and will keep ears and eyes open.

"I love when humans fly,"

[Westerly 61]

gowlerk

Ouch. One of my biggest worries.

It shouldn't be. That is what insurance is for. You get all your crap stolen and then you get all new crap to replace it with. Renters insurance to cover your own personal stuff is really cheap. Like $15k in coverage is about $20 a month, and it covers most forms of loss. It's really a no-brainer to get.

Hopefully the OP finds his stuff.

[RiggerLee 61]

What else was stolen? You say they didn't take the student harnesses? That implies a Wufo but the fact that they took the time to steal extra heavy looking back pack thingies implies that they had some knowledge of their value. Maybe some one that targeted the drop zone and tried to do a little research on what to steal before hand. Maybe some one that had been out to the dropzone in the last couple of months? Maybe you could pull the wavers from the last month or two and give copies to the police? In your briefing do you happen to mention the value of the rigs, "This is a $10,000 dollar system and the most advanced equipment in the world..."

Lee

Lee
lee@velocitysportswear.com
www.velocitysportswear.com

[hackish 8]

They opened the correct seacan and it looks to have taken a lot of work. Bending up a heavy steel roll door takes some effort. Probably wuffos because of the rigs taken. A wuffo might assume a larger rig was worth more.

The thing I was most interested in was what riggers experience was with recovery and if sn were ever checked when buying gear for the dz. As I said, I would hope alarm bells go off when gear shows up from an untraceable source.

[gowlerk 2,198]

Westerly

***Ouch. One of my biggest worries.

It shouldn't be. That is what insurance is for. You get all your crap stolen and then you get all new crap to replace it with. Renters insurance to cover your own personal stuff is really cheap. Like $15k in coverage is about $20 a month, and it covers most forms of loss. It's really a no-brainer to get.

Hopefully the OP finds his stuff.


As always you are an expert in another matter you know absolutely nothing about.

[jcd11235 0]

hackish

They opened the correct seacan and it looks to have taken a lot of work. Bending up a heavy steel roll door takes some effort. Probably wuffos because of the rigs taken. A wuffo might assume a larger rig was worth more.

To an unscrupulous someone looking to start a DZ cheap, or maybe keep one going, tandem rigs and large rigs might also be worth more.

It just sounds like more planning went into the theft than one would expect if the planning ended with the theft.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Westerly 61]

gowlerk

******Ouch. One of my biggest worries.

It shouldn't be. That is what insurance is for. You get all your crap stolen and then you get all new crap to replace it with. Renters insurance to cover your own personal stuff is really cheap. Like $15k in coverage is about $20 a month, and it covers most forms of loss. It's really a no-brainer to get.

Hopefully the OP finds his stuff.


As always you are an expert in another matter you know absolutely nothing about.

I am not an expert in insurance, rather I bothered to read my policy unlike most people. My policy explicitly says theft is covered. Every policy I have ever had says the same thing. Renters insurance wont cover commercial goods stored at another location, but a commercial policy will.

[Deimian 43]

Each of those rigs can be more than $10K. They stole multiple. This is a DZ, not a private apartment or house. What has your private renters insurance to do with this situation? What about the lack of income because they can't put out as many tandems without those rigs? How is your remark of any relevance here? Who are you to tell someone else that their worries are not justified?

Gowlerk is right. I don't know you, but you are certainly coming out in these forums as someone that should listen more and talk way less.

[jcd11235 0]

Deimian

Each of those rigs can be more than $10K. They stole multiple. This is a DZ, not a private apartment or house. What has your private renters insurance to do with this situation? What about the lack of income because they can't put out as many tandems without those rigs? How is your remark of any relevance here? Who are you to tell someone else that their worries are not justified?

Lost income protection is a common coverage of commercial insurance.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[hackish 8]

I don't know how the insurance discussion, however misinformed some of it may be has anything to do with a bunch of skydiving gear being ripped off by thieves.

To me, the rigs were like my babies, each with its own history and repairs scheduled for the winter. All I can see is that packers will be stressed trying to keep up, clients may have difficulty jumping together and someones hard earned money and gear is gone. This is not what any dzo wants to have happen.

From the many messages I've gotten it seems like gear doesn't get recovered very often. Many years ago my own rig got stolen and was never recovered.

[obelixtim 150]

Some times they do. I had a rig returned when the cops raided the house of a known burglar on another matter (dope bust) and found my rig along with a lot of other stolen property. It was obvious they'd thought it was a back pack when they stole it, but then realised there was nothing they could really do with it. I was just glad they hadn't dumped it somewhere.

A trick I've used to recover stolen property is to put a classified advert in the local paper "wanted to buy". In this case a mountain bike. Some supermarkets and shops also have free noticeboards where you can put a poster up, which I did.

I got a reply, met the guy, and there was the bike. Of course I got it back free of charge, and the individual involved got a free introduction to a knuckle sandwich.

If they didn't take the riders harnesses, its likely that they were whuffos who didn't know what they had, and won't really know what they've got till they take a look at them.

Then they'll have a problem knowing what to do with them. Just hope they don't dump them somewhere, but if they think they might make some money from selling them you might have a chance.

They could be dumb enough to put them on eBay or some such sellers website. Keep a lookout on those sites, and notify any dropzones in the state to keep a lookout for them.

You never know when you might get lucky.

ETA: If you do advertise, do it subtly. As in: Wanted to buy cheap OLD parachute/s for school, up to $500, or something like that.

It might just throw them off the scent if they just see an ad for parachutes which makes them suspicious.

They might not know the difference between old/new, or the value, so they might think anything they get for them is a bonus, especially if they want to get rid of them.

Long shot, but might be worth a crack.

My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

[dudeman17 340]

It might be worth a try to notify manufacturers and other dzs to be on the lookout for someone trying to buy the same number of pax harnesses.