The man accused of stealing the Sea Scouts’ 30-foot sailboat, swapping its registration numbers onto a junker, and leaving the worse boat behind has reportedly been arrested, which means he may not get his old boat back either.
This was already a beautiful little harbor-crime story: someone allegedly decided the Sea Scouts had a nicer boat than he did, performed the world’s dumbest maritime trade-in, and hoped nobody would notice that the youth sailing program’s vessel had been replaced by a floating downgrade in a fake mustache. Now the missing Island Hopper has been found in Marina del Rey, a suspect is in custody, and the alleged swap artist may have learned the hard way that “finders keepers” is not admiralty law.
“It’s really cool to help the Scouts because I used to work for the Boy Scouts 25 years ago at that base, and I know how much effort they put into fixing boats and learning and how many kids come down and learn from that,” said a man named Munah, who found the boat. “It was kinda a coincidence that we stumbled upon this. Walter here is a great dockmaster who is really supportive and helped us go look and investigate and talk to other dockmasters.”
The Scouts are thrilled that the boat has been found and are hoping to get it back soon. The boat, which is said to be in pretty bad shape, is still in the custody of the sheriff’s department.
They hope it can be returned to them by August, which is when they hold an open house for potential Scouts to come take a look at their program.
The alleged plan was bold, stupid, and apparently parked nearby.
Heck, if you are going to steal a boat this way, at least steal a boat from some rich asshat, not the scouts.