BayAreaKiteboarding.com

Just a heads up, if any nefarious scoundrels approach you to purchase a used Slingshot Celeritas, its mine. Stole out of my pickup in Richmond Annex Saturday night. Dingbats probably don't even know its a kiteboard, but thought I would post here to see if anyone sees it.

Mine has/had straps, with black grip pads on each side of and below front strap. Its the weird sliding mechanism that slingshot has since discontinued.

Does anyone have ideas on chasing this down? I've been searching craigslist and thought about calling pawn shops in the area. I just don't think the person who stole it really knows what it is and I'll bet it ends up thrown away when no one will buy it off them....

I hope you had your name written on it and some documentation of permanent wear/serial#.

I had some other non kite items stolen and learned from the police that there is a network of 'plausible deniability' that causes/allows for stolen item to transfer many hands (and probably state lines) in the matter of 24 hrs. A $2000 laptop or bike fetches just a few dollars or some drugs for the initial thief, gets some distance and then the price balloons to a point of sale somewhere reasonable for the unsuspecting buyer. The person stealing it might be disorganized, but the network for cashing in on that is anything but.

Someone had mentioned on one of the forum boards starting a list of stolen kite equipment to help those not wanting to support buying stolen gear. There should be a way to confirm that used gear purchases aren't items stolen.

If they're dumb enough to unload it locally in the near future, can you provide individual info? I keep my eye on sfcraigslist, but not south or north.

(I'm loving my celeritas and would replace it with the same, except preferably without the dings and scuffs)

yep, my name and phone number were printed on bottom of board, but they probably sanded those ids right off. Replacement Celeritas is due to arrive tomorrow.

Faith in humanity restored, guy called me today and asked if I lost a surfboard. Board and Bag recovered. Guy said he bought it off a meth tweaker, I didn't ask any questions, hustled down to San Leandro and picked it up. I could see where someone had tried to sand off my name and phone number but stopped since it would have removed the finish. Other than that, completely untouched.
I now pull all my gear out of my truck each night, its a few extra minutes and well worth the peace of mind. Now I've got twice as many Celeritas kiteboards, yeah!

Great to hear you got your board back!

Let this be a lesson to all of us... TAKE YOUR GEAR OUT! ... especially to those of us with trucks since caps aren't alarmed like cars, and are actually pretty easy to break into if no one is around watching.