Adding a Hull or "HIN" Number

[Jon Neely]

Our Caliber 28 at one point supposedly had a serial number on the transom at one point but I can not find any evidence of this. I took all of the Teak rail off here and still found nothing. After talking to caliber and finding my boat is the forth boat ever built by the McCreary brothers, in their back yard no less they still insist it had a HIN number on the starboard top part of the transom. There is no evidence of damage in this region and the boat has never been repainted, so who knows! All I know is I need to add one before we paint her so if anyone has any ideas, please do share them, my current thought would be;

1. get a metal stamp set
2. grind down an area 1mm into the fiberglass
3. mix up some thick west systems with additive and squeegee flat
4. press firmly with stamps and let dry....

tell me what you guys think

Jon

[daddle]

Skip it. Ask Caliber what the number would have been. Put that number on the registration. Forget about it.

[capnorv]

Just this week we got the Docs with the HIN on them, it was a 9 month battle. West Virginia is not accustomed to changing 30 year old Docs which are nonconforming. Especially when the master carpenter said it was so. If you don't have to change anything to register/Doc DON"T... We had to come up with rubbings, photos of HIN, transom, Doc in hull tatoo, hailing port and name, and notarized letter of compliance. Each step takes a couple months turnaround. For the state we had to have rubbing and photo of HIN. All this so the border police will let us keep our boat when we come back to the states! I ramble... your idea of adding HIN makes sense to me.

[Hud3]

Just a FYI...

When my insurance company required a survey to renew the policy (normal after five years), the surveyor made an image of the HIN number by laying a piece of paper over it and rubbing a pencil on the paper. This was attached to his survey report. I assume that if there had been no HIN, the insurance company would have had a problem with the renewal.

Have you been able to insure your boat without a HIN?

[doug86]

Just to be clear, your boat already has a HIN assigned to it, and that number appears on your registration or document, but just not physically on the transom; right?

And, what you are asking is what would be a way to mechanically impress the HIN into the fiberglass.

Do I have that correct?

[anjou]

On EU boats, there are two HINs, one very visable on the transom and the other is hidden somewhere under the carpet or headlining inside the vessel where a boat thief would have some trouble finding it to rub it away.

HINs are scribed into a fibreglass transom with a stensil set and dremmel tool, then black coloured epoxy is rubbed in to further mark by staining.

If you start adding unauthorised HINs at this stage, everyone will assume the boat is a ringer and you may well get the blame, ie, your the thief.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by anjou

On EU boats, there are two HINs, one very visable on the transom and the other is hidden somewhere under the carpet or headlining inside the vessel where a boat thief would have some trouble finding it to rub it away.

HINs are scribed into a fibreglass transom with a stensil set and dremmel tool, then black coloured epoxy is rubbed in to further mark by staining.

If you start adding unauthorised HINs at this stage, everyone will assume the boat is a ringer and you may well get the blame, ie, your the thief.

When did they start putting HIN's on boats. I understand it was different in different Countries. In Italy, for instance, I have been told that it was the late '80's early '90' before the HIN was put in place. I am buying a French boat in Italy and no one has been able to find the HIN,

The official Bill of Sale for the USCG has a seperate form that allows for boats that don't have HIN's

[westsail42]

Just went through a similar situation. The CG cited us with a "fix-it" ticket for our semi-custom 28 foot sloot. The HIN, barely engraved in the gelcoat in the first place, accidentally got faired over and painted.

The fix: went to a trophy/awards shop and had them engrave the HIN on a strip of brass (they have little CNC type machines to do this). Thru-bolt it to an area on the stern.

This satisfied the CG. Note, we had the same HIN on the title/registration for years, so it was never "lost".

[Jon Neely]

Doug86 you are right on. My registration has our HIN but the boat does no have the physical number on the transom. So I think In my case this is just a simple matter of adding one, but I want it to look original to minimize hassles when we come back into the states from the haha.Am I in full understandment or am I missing something else here. I'm also going to put a board with the number on it in the main cabin

[doug86]

I don't think you will have any hassles returning to the USA.

I have used a Dremel tool to etch the HIN on a number of boats after I talked to the CG about how to comply with the marking regs. You may want to take that route, as sometimes attempts to make it look original can backfire. If you don't exactly match the original method, but it looks like you tried to, then you raise suspicions. If you just use an engraving tool, you can explain that the old HIN was in advertantly filled in and had to be re-applied.