Category: News

During September there have been 9 incidents reported in Trinidad, all occurring in the TTSA mooring field/anchorage. The first report, September 4, 2018, involved an occupied yacht and the thieves needed only a knife to cut the dinghy from the davits. The dinghy/outboard was recovered when the thieves abandoned it after being discovered by the victim. Reports were made to TTSA, Police and Coast Guard.

A little less than two weeks later, on September 15, 2018, 7 unoccupied yachts were burgled overnight. The thieves were well prepared and defeated locks/cables and entered the affected yachts, and targeted dinghies, outboards and tools. The security team at TTSA discovered the overnight burglaries the following morning. TTSA management informed the affected owners (all local) and immediately instituted a nighttime watch, now having 24HR coverage and the use of a tender. The next night, September 16, 2018, another dinghy/outboard was stolen, also from an unoccupied yacht. The TTSA security team became aware of the theft while it was in progress but were unable to intercept the bigger/faster boat used by the thieves. A cruiser who also saw the activity was able to contact the TTCG, and provided a description of the open fishing boat used by the thieves.

Police reports were made for all of these thefts, and a crime scene team visited to collect evidence. A police investigation is in progress.

TTSA, YSATT, and TTCG are working together to increase and improve patrols, and to streamline communications in the case of any further activity. Other marinas in the area have been informed and have taken appropriate measures.

    Follow Us    Share

Thanks to those users who supplied constructive criticism and suggestions for improving our website and offerings. We took recent critiques of a post that had been classified as “attempted piracy” to heart, and went to work exploring alternatives and then testing them with a group of users, both new and old. Based on all the feedback we received and balanced by the technical capabilities of our website we have made some changes. We have added the category “Suspicious activity – threatening or potentially dangerous activity by others” to the main events menu for use by those making reports going forward.

Users made it quite clear that they want CSSN to collect, vet and report about suspicious activities that do not meet the threshold of attempted piracy, and that these events should be properly classified and labelled plainly. To accomplish this CSSN will consider carefully and evaluate each report, and validate/assign the event type category considering the constellation of factors that combine uniquely in each situation. We will then publish in accordance with our established processes.

Further, it was also made clear that you not only want the information, you want to see it on our very popular and easy to use interactive maps, but in a way that differentiates suspicious activity from other piracy events. To that end you will now see Suspicious activity events on the dedicated piracy (and all other interactive maps), but designated by the color yellow marker to make it easier to identify this subset on the spectrum of piracy activity and facilitate risk assessment and planning.

Additionally, we reviewed all of the previously classified Attempted piracy events and decided to re-categorize 2 of them. The recent event off Trinidad that brought this issue to the forefront, and one older event from 2017, also off Trinidad. We have updated these records event type and in accordance with their new category they now appear as yellow markers on the maps, making them easy to identify and distinguish.

Our mission and values remain unchanged – CSSN informs, captains decide.
We continue to welcome your feedback, contact us.

    Follow Us    Share

Recently CSSN published a firsthand report about events reported to us that occurred on a passage from Trinidad to Grenada. The captain that submitted the report used our online form and chose from the options there – Attempted Piracy. The report was vetted and then published, and accurately described what occurred.

A few readers contacted us concerned that the categorization of the events did not meet the specific definition of the existing category “Attempted Piracy”. And they were right.

So we will make some changes after considering a broad range of possibilities, including those that some readers have thoughtfully suggested, balanced by the technical realities of our website, and the resources of our all-volunteer team.

We appreciate constructive input and look forward to improving our service to the cruising community. Stay tuned, and Know Before You Go !
Kim White

    Follow Us    Share