Three items of interest for readers of the blog.

1. New GOST Marine Security Products at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Bahia Mar Yachting Center, October 25-29. Products on display – Booth 310. Live product demonstrations aboard Phantom, F/G Dock 16.

2. Drug Bust in Bocas – a good tale of situational awareness. Not all security tales are about sad, violent endings.

3. Top 3 Items Stolen in the Winter – electronics, outboards and outdrives. Also a nice list of things to do to prepare the boat for winter storage.

Drop me a comment if any of these items were useful to you.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA (USA) – Marine security, tracking and monitoring products supplier GOST™ (Global Ocean Security Technologies) recently hosted nearly 100 dealers at its annual sales and technical training seminar at the Bahia Mar Resort in Fort Lauderdale.

The one-day seminar featured an overview of the GOST product line, sales and marketing tips and an advance look at new products in development, training in vessel security system installation, programming, customer service and support, followed by a certification test.

The seminar also featured a demonstration of a complete GOST system installed aboard a 62 Azimut (pictured right) provided by vessel security consulting firm Phantom Services.

“The classroom training went great, but to have our attending dealers be able to experience a complete GOST security, tracking, monitoring, video surveillance, acoustic deterrent and cloaking system in action provides a unique and memorable training experience,” said GOST Director of Business Development Brian Kane.

For more information about GOST marine security, tracking and monitoring products, visit www.gostglobal.com or call 1+954.565.9898.

Also in Ft Lauderdale news –

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the “Yachting Capital of the World” will host the 53rd Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show on October 25-29, 2012. Show exhibits range from yacht builders and designers to exotic cars and brokerage yachts. A wide variety of boats and sea vessels will be on display including runabouts, sportfishers, high performance boats, center consoles, cabin cruisers, flats boats, skiffs, express cruisers, sailing yachts, motor yachts, bowriders, catamarans, ski boats, jet boats, trawlers, inflatables, canoes, and extraordinary superyachts.  Stop by the GOST and the Phantom Services exhibits, tell them Don from the Yacht Security blog sent you their way.

One of the key points made here on this blog about personal and cruising security is situational awareness (SA). Learning about the places you go and live through research is one of the main methods we use to start our SA.

Here is a link to an article from SOFREP – Pedestrian Intelligence

They lay out three rules:

Rule 1: Only infants are spoon-fed

Rule 2: Google is your friend

Rule 3: Trust no one, including yourself

Under Rule 2 – I rely on Google Reader to keep up with many blogs from security and cruising/boating sites. There are other similar news aggregate’s available (yahoo, msn, etc.) – I got turned onto Google Reader when I started paying attention to many sites for my information flow – it’s easy to learn and use.

Hope this helps some of you out. If it does, leave me a comment and let me know how it helps you.

Another report from Noonsite – Colombia, Santa Marta, Taganga Bay: Armed Boarding and Robbery

A nice summary of lessons learned from the cruisers at the end of the article (below).

Perhaps the cruisers with dogs aboard also have an option to consider…. at least as an early warning system.

Lessons Learnt:
1. Do NOT check in while in Taganga Bay. The check in process takes 1 to 2 weeks so your boat becomes a fixture in the bay, not a good idea.
2. Do get a security gate(s) so you can lock the boat without suffocating. This simple measure might have prevented the whole ordeal. DO NOT GO TO COLOMBIA WITHOUT ONE.
3. We understood there was a rumour that we had a lot of money on board. We did ask for lobsters for the night, maybe skip that the next time… (not sure if that was the source of the rumor but no idea where else they might get the idea from).
4. A flare gun/pepper spray might have worked/might not have worked. They had a gun (will luckily never know whether it actually worked) and were likely high on coke. We did not see the gun immediately so
god knows in what way any escalation would have worked out. The 20 stitches hurt…..

For those interested in getting information straight from the source, Cruisers Forum is a good start. While all information gleaned from the internet needs to be scrutinized against your own education and experiences, the discussions there are pretty good. Sometimes the ‘opposing’ views are quite well thought out – other times they are just plain anti-whatever subject rants.

Right now there is a discussion ongoing about piracy in the Caribbean – pretty good reading.

Check them out, have a good time with the forum.