Cape Coral Rowing Club burglarized
Club reports that batteries were stolen from safety boats
A local nonprofit was burglarized late last week.
The Cape Coral Rowing Club had a pair of batteries for its safety boats stolen in the early morning hours Thursday.
Captured partially on video footage, an individual or individuals came via water on to the property used by the club off Old Burnt Store Road.
Video footage shows a boat entering the vicinity before an unknown individual spray painted the camera lens black to stop any more criminal activity from being recorded.
Rowing Club President Saundra Weston said when she went to take out the chase boats to follow the club’s morning youth session, the discovered the batteries were removed.
“We were getting ready to launch, and so I went down to the safety boat area, and thought, ‘Huh, this looks weird,'” Weston said. “There’s a hatch on the side of the front of the console, and it was lifted up. I drove the boat the day before so I knew I didn’t do it. Then I looked in the back corner and realized that I had no battery. That someone stole my battery.”
Weston said some out-of-the-norm happenings earlier that morning before she went down to the safety boats all made sense.
Before the summer camp session, she went to the dock to say good morning to some of the adult rowers getting an early start, when they told her that the lock on a small shed inside the club’s fenced-off area was gone. The lock to a box trailer belonging to the club was also missing.
Weston said she figured maybe some of the youth that was using the equipment the day before had forgot to lock up.
“This was before I knew that the batteries had been stolen, so I thought it was pretty random,” Weston said. “You know, kids forget to lock stuff and so I didn’t freak out about it.”
Weston called a friend to supervise the kids as she called the Cape Coral Police Department. In the meantime, Weston checked her camera footage and saw the thieves came by water.
“I got just enough footage on the cameras that you can see a boat, and it looks like the kind of boat that a mobile marine mechanic would use,” she said. “It was pontoons on the bottom and a flat deck, like a work surface. It was an outboard motor and a stand up center console. There was a guy standing there behind the console, so apparently there were at least two of them.”
Weston said the individual that came ashore tripped the camera lights before the video went black from spray paint on the lens.
All evidence was provided to CCPD.
Weston said she is perplexed as to why the theft occurred.
“Especially from a nonprofit,” she said. “We’re not going to have a top-end battery. The whole thing is weird.”
Weston replaced everything so that the club could continue on the next day. When she left on that Friday, she made sure to take the batteries with her.
“I don’t understand,” Weston continued. “When we were in Cape Harbour for 15 years… we never had an incident.”
The property the Rowing Club is currently using belongs to Forest Development, which is in the midst of developing the land into Gulf Gateway Resort and Marina Village on the Seven Islands.
Weston said their lease is on a month-by-month basis, as the property once belonged to city and has since changed hands to Forest Development.
Weston said with more construction looming, she knows the rowing club is on borrowed time when it comes to a location from which they can operate.
There were talks of the club moving to Tropicana Park, which was not approved by the city.
“Right now, we’re hanging in limbo,” Weston said.