Question from a friend....

[SV Someday Came]

A friend of mine has a civil claim against the owner/operator of two commercial whale watching vessels. He has been unable to serve process upon this individual because he has supplied either fraudulent or outdated addresses to the California Secretary of State, the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the FCC. Checking on the call sign listed with the FCC gives the same non-existent address. Is there a way there is a way for a private citizen to obtain the address he has placed on file with the Coast Guard? Does the Coast Guard (or FCC) care if the address on file is correct? Is there a way to request the Coast Guard to make sure this operator's information is correct?

Thanks

Michael

[Ex-Calif]

I suspect the Coast Guard is like the FAA - They have a rule that you must notify them within 30 days of any address change. In reality people blow this requirement all the time. Information in computers is only as good as the input. I doubt he has kept the coast guard up to speed.

A whale watching boat is a pretty hard thing to hide. If it was important I'd hire a process server. They are part detective, part bloodhound. Wait on the dock for skippy to show up and hand him the papers...

[David M]

If the boat is a whale watching boat it is probably a commercial boat. This means that it must be documented which means registered with the federal government and more specifically the USCG. The owner of a documented vessels is public information. So it should be no problem finding out who the owner is by contacting the Coast Guard. After you obtain the name of the individual or the corporation that owns the vessel, you will need to hire the services of a process server to serve the documents. They know how to find people, hiding or not.

A title transfer of a documented vessel is done through the Coast Guard, therefore they will know who is the current owner and who was the owner at the time of the incident.

[Chief Engineer]

I tracked down a guy who ran out on me.....all the way to Central America.....The Internet is a great "NET".

[sailorgal]

You might want to try checking on the USCG vessel documentation website if you haven't already

Office of Science and Technology

Good Luck.

[Chief Engineer]

USCG CGMIX PSIX Search Page

[David M]

I just looked up my boat. The search engine works. They just don't list the owners name.

[sailorgal]

The USCG vessel documentation site does list the name of the owner as well as the names of the previous owners and any previous names for the boat.

[SV Someday Came]

Thank-you all so very much! Will pass on this information.

[Soft Air]

Does anybody know if there is the same kind of search engine for British registered vessels?

Thanks

[David M]

Originally Posted by sailorgal

The USCG vessel documentation site does list the name of the owner as well as the names of the previous owners and any previous names for the boat.

I could not find where the owner is listed. Could you show me please? I looked up my research boat and a few passenger ferries and ships I know of. I could not find the owners.

Here is one example: http://cgmix.uscg.mil/PSIX/PSIXDetai...esselID=452375

[camaraderie]

David...this shows City of Vallejo owns it...
Vessel Documentation Query by Name

Use this search by name link in the future:
Office of Science and Technology

[David M]

Thanks Cam. The first link does not work but the second link does work. I like the NOAA site, it has more information than the Coastie website. So my question remains, where in the Coast Guards website is the name of the vessels owner listed?

[Hud3]

The CG site doesn't list the owner's name, but it does have the advantage of listing vessels with non-U.S. flags.