Hull Identification Number (HIN)

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Bob McGovern
Posts: 283
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 3:08 am
Location: Wyoming, USA

Hull Identification Number (HIN)

Post by Bob McGovern »

As you know, the international HIN format we use today (printed on transom, stbd side, plus one place belowdecks for boats after 1984) did not exist until 1973, and there was another year or so before it became standardized and universal. Ballads like our 1972 model may not have any such number, and some later ones may have seen their transom HIN effaced by repair work or otherwise lost in the mists of time.

* For those Ballads with HINs, does anyone know if Albin stamped a copy somewhere inside the boat? If so, where?

* For those later Ballads with readable HINs: could a few of you owners reproduce them here, for those lacking HINs to see & decode the format? (More on 'why?' later.) If you could include your hull # from the little bronze plate by the companionway, that may help in decoding the HIN. A Typical HIN would be three letters (The US Coast Guard lists Albin Marin AB as AMN), followed by nine numbers and/or letters, the last four of which incorporate the date of manufacture.

http://www.uscgboating.org/recalls/mic_ ... spx?id=AMN

http://hinvalid.com/hinfo.php

Okay, here is why we care a lot: A slightly out-of-control branch of Mexico's tax collection agency just impounded nearly 400 boats and held them under embargo for several months. Most of them were in the country perfectly legally and had paid all their fees. And while the majority have been released, several dozen are still impounded, mostly because they did not have a HIN stamped on the transom, or the HIN was not standard format, or the HIN did not match what was on the import permit paperwork, or the tax agent mis-read another number for the HIN....

Our boat is going to Mexico, and we want a bright shiny HIN that even the dullest provincial civil servant can see and recognize as a HIN. It is not entirely clear to me the HIN has to be issued by the factory as such: merely that is has to meet the formatting requirements and be unique in the world. I think, with your collective help, we can provide such a number for Fionn.;)

Some of our boat's paperwork includes a number in the HIN box that doesn't match the standard format and may have been issued by a state agency, or made up entirely, or misread from some other place like the engine serial number. That number is: 375K9342. Or on one document, 375K9342/72. Does anyone here have a number like that associated with their Ballad?

Sorry for all the pesky questions, but documenting this boat with the USCG is going to be tricky anyhow for chain-of-custody reasons; and making perfectly certain it passes with Mexican authorities has suddenly become a major worry. With tax and importation laws becoming stricter everywhere, it may be useful for us owners of older Ballads to bring them into modern HIN compliance.
pirata
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:37 am

Re: Hull Identification Number (HIN)

Post by pirata »

I have a Ballad from 1973 with the number 253 in the bronze plate and in the original mainsail. But, recently I found the number 276 inside the stern locker at stb side. Now I'm confused! I have the hull number 253 or 276?
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