It's interesting that the Masterlock gets lousy reviews in the sailorsolutions article. We've used it for almost 10 years, 6 in the Western Caribbean. Unfortunately it needs to be replaced because the bar rusts so badly about every 3 years, but I can buy several for the price of a stainless version.

We believe one of the bigger keys to keeping the outboard safe is to separate it from the dinghy - which admittedly adds another 10 minutes to our daily routine, but we still have our outboard & dinghy. Thieves don't want a dinghy. A dinghy is much more difficult to replace than an outboard if you're cruising in out of the way places. It's much harder to steal an outboard off our stern rail on the boat than off a dinghy, even hanging from the hip. Thieves in the NW Carib last winter were getting so that they'd turn off their outboard, paddle up to a sailboat with a dinghy hanging from the hip or even stern davits. Position their boat under the dinghy, cut the line that the dinghy was hanging from, lower the dinghy into their boat and all cruisers heard was the big outboard roaring away from their boat with their dinghy aboard.

A side note about the Masterlock - our first year leaving Winterlude in the Rio Dulce, Guatemala for six months ... we didn't realize that leaving the lock for that long would be a problem. When we returned the BIGGEST issue we had, no mold, no mildew, no other issues, was that the lock on the Masterlock wouldn't come open! It was stuck solid. For three days we tried everything to no avail. The caretaker at our marina said he'd only heard of one outboard ever being stolen in the Rio with that type of lock and he jokingly suggested maybe we should find the thief and pay him to steal our outboard just so we could get it off. Finally, they were able to pry the lock open before they had to cut the bar apart. Lesson learned, we never leave the boat without soaking the lock in vinegar to get any corrosion that's accumulated over the six months we use the boat and then thoroughly spraying it with Tri-Lube. When we return, we spray it in Tri-Lube again before we try to open it, but it's always opened.

Cheers! Jan