Marinas are affluent places, which immediately makes them a prime candidate for two things: crime, and the kind of superior video monitoring that helps prevent it. Nearly 10,500 American businesses use the marina model, making them directly responsible for taking steps to safeguard their patrons and their property.
Marinas are synonymous with boats, but there are other ways criminals can exploit these sites without targeting the vessels themselves. This marina premises security guide will spotlight the various risks in and around a marina and what site managers can do to protect everyone’s safety and best interests.
6 Reasons Why Marinas Need Security Surveillance
A vessel is automatically exposed to various risks — from human error and being lost in the crowd to combustible exposure or even becoming the operating stage for seemingly unlikely criminals — once it docks. Theft is the biggest threat, and it’s an act made all the easier in these bustling and often overly trusting spaces. Here are a few of the challenges:
1. Marinas Can Be Large to Massive
Marinas are big by nature since they must harbor boats of varying sizes and provide adequate walking room, observation decks, dining facilities, and other areas. The structure of the vessels and their extruding parts and sails, combined with the vastness of the spaces, can make overall surveillance challenging.
2. Boats Mean Monied Patrons
Owning a boat isn’t cheap, and criminals know it. The presence of a single vessel is enough of an attraction, but numerous docked boats become essentially a beacon for thieves and hijackers scheming to loot its contents or make off with the boat itself. Even visitors simply strolling around a marina present potentially profitable targets.
3. Marinas Run a Pronounced Fire Risk
All that water isn’t much help if a gasoline fire breaks out. This isn’t the first security risk that may leap to mind, but it is a real possibility with so many boats using it for fuel. Security surveillance increases the chances of preventing an isolated fire from becoming a marina-wide incident by helping to alert on-site personnel and outside authorities quickly.
4. Other Accidents Happen
Not every boat owner can enter and exit a marina without causing a scrape or worse. Security surveillance can be an invaluable tool in helping you or your patrons settle a claim of damages or injury.
5. Marinas Also Have Cars and Stored Boats
Parking lots are hotbeds for criminal activity, and a marina full of vehicles left for extended periods is a major temptation. Many boats are also stored off-dock either indoors or outdoors, which creates another set of spaces requiring regular surveillance.
6. Sometimes Criminals Are Right Under Your Nose
Boats and marinas can be exploited by the kind of criminals who are at home in the water. Consider this article detailing how the U.S. Coast Guard busted two illegal chartering operations running right out of boats, a reminder that their owners can be the potential victims of crime, but also perpetrators.
The whole point of a marina is to provide a safe harbor for boats and everyone (and everything) in them, not to provide a line of sitting ducks ripe for theft and disaster. Marina managers deploying various security measures can empower their location to become a safer place for visitors and a scarier one for trespassers.
5 Musts for Marina Premises Security
It isn’t only criminals who check your marina for weak points. The security stance of your location will be foremost on the mind of actual and potential visitors.
You must have a security plan designed to reinforce that critical bond of trust marinas are built on. Take these actions now to send a clear message that your marina won’t be victimized:
1. Video Surveillance
Modern technology allows video surveillance to provide five-star protection in almost as many ways. Wireless Wi-Fi capabilities let you watch and communicate with the video feed remotely, while two-way communication allows for direct vocal interaction with potential suspects. Night vision and super-tough casing ensure that neither low-light conditions nor tampering poses a performance threat.
2. Entrance Security
Entrance security boils down to one of three main types of access control: managed (where marina management alone decides who may enter); discretionary (where on-site security personnel can make that call); and role-based (only pre-designated individuals may enter, depending upon their role in the marina). Management can deploy each of these at different entrances and offer several options, including on-site guards and keyless locks opened by passcodes and biometrics.
3. Clear and Prominent Signage
Notifying patrons and potential criminals that high-tech video surveillance is operating creates comfort in the first group and caution in the second. Any potential deterrent is an ally to marina security, and the brighter, bolder, and more direct your security signs are, the more impactful they will be.
4. Strong Fencing and Gating
Securing the perimeter of a marina is only partially possible compared to other landlocked sites. Waterside will always be open by necessity, but every other approach angle can be securely fenced, gated, and locked to make it challenging for anyone to enter illegally without attracting attention.
5. Powerful Lighting
The scale and often unique shape of a marina can provide criminals with many places to operate unseen or hide when the heat is on. Bright lighting helps dispel shadowy areas and discourage perpetrators who prefer to operate unseen.
Marina crime prevention depends on site managers being proactive to eliminate risks by anticipating their occurrence. The surest way to do this with confidence is by consulting with security experts who can provide a free site design to demonstrate how much surveillance could benefit your marina.
Contact Our Site-Security Experts With Any Questions
Mobile Video Guard fully appreciates how vulnerable marinas are to crime. We specialize in remotely monitored video surveillance solutions to ensure there’s always an unblinking eye looking out for everyone and everything on your premises.
We provide video surveillance services nationwide that are designed to deter crime and raise our customers’ level of security and safety. Contact Mobile Video Guard and speak to an expert today with any security concerns for your marina or other site.
