How Old Is My Boat? 2 Methods to Find Out With Authentic Results

How to know how old is my boat? With the HIN. The HIN or the hull identification number can tell you all the basic information about a ship, including the manufacturing year.

Apart from this, there is another particular strategy you can adapt to pinpoint the age of your vessel. If you want to know all about it, then keep reading this article.

How Old Is My Boat: Ways to Know It for Certain

There are a few methods that tell the age of a boat. Here, you will get to know about the 2 most trustworthy tactics to get the manufacturing date of your vessel. And once you get that date, a simple 2nd-grade extraction will tell you what you want to know.

Method 1: Using the HIN (the best way to know a boat’s age)

The HIN is permanently affixed on the upper-right corner of the transom of the boat. Check that spot and detect the code.

Boat US suggests,

“When buying a used boat, take a rubbing of the boat’s HIN ­using a pencil and paper to ­ensure it matches the seller’s ­documents.”

This HIN code is basically an ID for boats/vessels. It contains 5 facts about the boat. This includes the month of manufacture and the year of manufacture.

The first eight characters of the HIN are the MIC or manufacturer’s identification code and hull serial number. The 9th and 10th characters are indications of the time your boat was manufactured. This part of the code is marked by a letter with a number associated with it.

Here, the letter indicates a specific month, while the digit is the designation of the year. To be more precise, the number says the last bit of the manufacturing year.

This is why knowing the Hull identification number is necessary to get a quick idea of the boat, no matter what the purpose is.

So, if your hull identification number reads AGB67890C504, you have to focus on C5. According to the table, C means October, and the digit is 5, which means your boat was built in October 2005. Thus, if you are reading this in 2022, your boat is 17 years old.

Method 2: Boat Bill of Sale

No matter where you buy your boat from, may it be from another buyer, the retailer, or the manufacturer, you will always get a boat bill of sale. If you didn’t, then you should’ve because it’s an essential document for boats.

In this bill of sale, there is supposed to be a section on boat information. Here, you will get the manufacturing year and many other credentials.

However, even if you find the manufacturing year missing, you will surely find the registration number of your vessel. All you have to do now is call the manufacturing company of your boat (the first three characters of the HIN are the initials of the manufacturer) and ask them to look up the registration number.

They may take a while to tell you when your boat was built. This way, you will have specific knowledge of your boat’s age.

This Video Will Help You Too!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How to know the model year of my boat?

The last two digits are the indication of your boat’s model year. In other words, if your vessel’s HIN is AGB67890C504, it means your boat’s model year is 2004.

When did hull identification numbers start?

The HIN or hull identification number started in 1972.

How old is my motor?

The manufacturer’s name and the manufacturing year of the motor are boldly stamped on the motor’s swivel bracket. Check the Hull Identification number.

Final Words

As you probably realize, knowing the age of a vessel is not difficult at all. You just have to identify a number and interpret it accordingly. If you have given this article a thorough read, you know everything about it.

In case you were wondering, “how old is my boat” all your queries should be satisfied by now. Make sure to carry out the two strategies mentioned in this article carefully, and everything should be alright.

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