: Over the past year or so, I've contacted the Coast Guard several times to ask
: about HIN, and never had the same answer twice. So I've concluded that
: they don't know any more than we do. One guy insisted that they only issue
: HINs for motorized vessels. Another guy referred me to an application form
: on their website that seemed more like it was for a "Capacity
: Plate" . You know the one - it must be visible from the helm, and
: clearly states the maximum number of passengers that can safely be
: transported. I set the form aside, and now can't find either it or the
: link.

: Absolute lunacy. Good luck with the dark side.

: Ken

I spoke about this to my brother who is with the Auxiliary Canadian Coast Guard and he insists that HIN's are only for motorized vessels. However if your boat is ever stolen, the police probably won't even look for it if you can't provide them with some kind of "serial number". To this my brother says it is OK to label your boat with some kind of homemade label that contains info such as your initials and date of manufacture. Now if someone checks with their local police force to know what kind of info they would require for locating a stolen boat we might be onto something.

But then "Murphy" will probably arrange it so that no two police forces give the same answer. If we keep bugging the Coast Guard about this issue they will probably figure out that they can make money by charging us for HIN labels and oblige every boat to have one. Then we will all be complainimg that we don't want HIN labels.

Glen in Baie-St-Paul.