I was racing on sat at the Dunedin marina... rumor has it marine patrol is going to do a sweep at the Dunedin causeway and ticket unregistered boats... this is all hearsay.. but ...

I heard they were just targeting one boat. But that's just a rumor.

And who is the lucky "one boat" ... i hope not me...

Rumors, they are never rich with details.

Wildcat is jonny law free. Could be a good excuses to test the waters elsewhere.

and it just gets worse, after reaching the previous ower of my cat.. he passed on this story about a different boat he sold to someone.. The new owner tried to sell it recently...

"Darts have no Hull Identification Number (HIN), none of them. After a few dozen phone calls I learned that to get a HIN you must get inspected by a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) agent. The guy who came to look at the Dart down at Gulfport was stereotypical law enforcement guy - flak jacket with sidearm. He interrogated the seller with intense detail, finally revealing that they were working from the angle that this boat is a stolen boat. He was not hearing that Darts NEVER have HINs nor the historical fact that few cats carry titles. The seller was told that this CRIMINAL investigation would be sent to Tallahassee in 4-6 weeks and perhaps they would offer a HIN but more likely they would pursue old records to identify all owners and the original importer, since the boat came from England long ago. The FWC guy said it could take 4-6 months to work out. The seller is despondent about losing his out-of-state buyer and considers his boat a total loss. The FWC guy also informed DMV and said that action flagged The seller and this boat from any further ownership transfer"

I think I'm going to do a homebuild thing present receipts for the new gear etc, west marine receipts for epoxy and such misc. junk and just present it as a new build My tornado has no id other than sail numbers so that should avoid most of these horror stories. I have a Coast Guard station at the foot of the bridge to the island here and the new Homeland Security Nor-tec vessels have been out practicing on us. We've been stopped twice on the same day twice now. Yes, different crews, no, not on the cat but a whaler heavily armed with 9 to 6 year olds and all of their attendant fish slaying gear.

Open the inspection ports and look for the numbers written on the inside of the hulls in marker pen!!! These should be traceable.

If you still have problems you could try here: http://www.dart18.com/contacts.htm

Cheshirecatman

i think if you get caught, the repercussions may be severe... i am sure this is gonna be a PITA, but i have to be legal.

i was told by one person, they can seize your boat if you can't prove ownership... and i was just told a story about a local sailor trying to fake numbers and ... it didnt end well for him...



sorry to hear, but happy you haven't been on a cat.
I think the key words above are ... "not on the cat"

if 1985 or older sellers should list they're boat in Utah where 1985 and older don't need a title. Not sure on HIN as mine had them so I used em. You may have to concede some loss on helping get it to the buyer but better than writing it off.

The real solution to this is to work through a sailor in the legislature. The Fish and Wildlife people are just cogs in the machine. The law needs to be changed. There has to be someone in the state legislature that would understand this and be willing to gain some friends for correcting a law that really makes no sense. If they really need these boats registered then they need to understand that most of the older boats in this class of boats never had a title.

How many stolen boats are out there anyway?

This really puts a sand spur in my shorts! Since my irresponsible days are loooonnnng past I 've made every effort to comply fully with ALL of the applicable laws on land and sea. Now I feel as if I have no good options because my boat really has no identifying numbers whatsoever and has never had any papers issued. Reading the bs at myflorida.gov makes it look like my only option is to claim "home build'. One of our local sheriff deputies repeatedly has scared the cr#p out of me when he comes to admire the boat on his occasional rides down our street. He only recently heard about this because he wants an electric motor for a flats skiff he's had for a long time and he too has no HID. He's buying a nice carbon push pole instead to fix his problem. Lee county still claims a title is necessary but yearly registration is not. So the upshot of the whole thing is still stupid. The nice lady at an unnamed local tax office said to 'not bother with it, we haven't done anything like that yet.' This answer really shocked me since in my studies of the county, fwc, and the state guidelines i found out that lee county has the most registered type 1 or whatever 16-26 foot vessels are in the state. I also found out that antique motorcycles are more expensive to register that antique cars. Just baffling.

Since this tornado has no hull id number and has clearly been used for years, I can't see any other way to go

This is really the only answer. Perhaps we get the e-mail addresses for all the rep's and start bombarding them with our stories. Then call the local news teams to do stories on it. That's the only way your going to get someone to notice. This is the kind of thing we need to communicate to the law makers.

This is really about getting tax dollars on the sale of a boat. They won't give you a title unless the previous owner will sign a notarized bill of sale. Now how do you do that if you bought it 12 years ago and titles were not necessary. A lot of people buy these things with a hand shake. I was told someone who frequents this site sold the above dart and won't sign the bill of sail so this dart owner could sell this boat without much hassle. If that's true, I wish he would explain to us why.

The Dart 18 in question DOES have numbers hand written on the inside of the hull and the officer was shown these numbers and they matched what was on the Bill of Sale. However, Dart only hand writes a 4 digit number. Since 1972 all boats registered in the US have to have a long specific sequence of numbers etched onto the outside. The 4 digit scribble didn't appease him.

Dart folks from NE U.S., do any of you have hull numbers? How did they ever get Darts into the USA? Smuggled in across the Canadian border? Filled with illegal Canadians?

Homebuilt idea? The officer investigating the Dart made a very pointed comment that the boat was clearly professionally built and not homebuilt. He was very aware that claiming homebuilt was one way to get a fresh HIN and was not going to allow that. It was never suggested that the Dart was homebuilt.

Etch your own? I was told by Fish and Wildlife that etching your own was a felony and would definitely be prosecuted.

Get in contact with US Sailing, this should be their responsibility to sort out, they are your advocates. It'll be easier for them as a group to put pressure on the powers that be.

The US Dart Importer was a fellow by the name of Brian Kology, Sailsports ltd. I believe his business was in New Hampshire but he has not been involved with Darts for at least 15 years. If he sold a boat out of state (eg me) he just needed a release for his own business tax waiver. It was up to my state to collect it's sales tax. Since there was no reason to title the boat with the state... Never a problem.

Brian might have names of the original owner but that won't help much since no one will want to take ownership temporarily or verify that the boat has never been stolen in it's lifetime. It's a catch 22!

The last class pres sails out of Tampa, ... perhaps he has some thoughts.

Marstrom Tornado's have the same problem, Jill Nickerson Daniel of Fun in the Sun can tell you how Marstrom dealt with this one.

Uh, no. This is a state-by-state problem, not a United States issue. US Sailing doesn't have the resources to be boat registration ombudsmen in 50 different states.

I was talking to a friend about this and I haven't checked into it but I believe it's possible to Document our boats. You are required to display the name and hailing port of the vessel and a federal tax sticker but no state numbers. It removes the state from having jurisdiction over the vessel. Anyone know more about this?

Interesting question. I know we have documented cruising boats, but I don't know about small boats.

He does raise an interesting point. My cruiser (33' monohull) isn't registered in SC, but instead is registered with the US Coast Guard.
A boat broker should be able to confirm if this is a possibility for a small cat.