I have made a great discovery
I bought my first canoe in the Spring of 2001, I purchased it from an old man in the North Georgia mountains. I never even thought it would be possible to find out any information about this boat. The old man’s yard was full of old junk cars, boats, lawn mowers, and many other odds and ends he had collected over the years. I ventured to the back of his yard and there sitting in front of me on two sawhorses was a 16 foot fiberglass canoe that had paint chipping and peeling off of it. I bought it from him for $125 cash, without even putting it in the water. I took it home to Atlanta, stripped off the old paint, and repainted the outside hunter green; I painted the inside tan. It is a very heavy canoe, but it is stable enough for me to stand up in, and I am about 6’3, 240lbs. It has excellent tracking, and cuts through the water with ease. I am glad I saw this message because after learning about the HIN I looked on my boat and there it was; the HIN, a little faded out but it is there, I had never even noticed it before. My canoe was made in 1973, and it is still going strong. I would like to find out more about my canoe, if you have anyway to look up the HIN I would welcome any help or advice. Thank you, Jeff cgbjdc77@yahoo.com
Manufacturer MIC Code
or manufacturer identification code is required by the Coast Guard on all recreational boats it is the 3 letters in the serial number. Example....
Mad River = MAD, Wilderness System = WKY, Dagger = DAQ and so on. You can look up the manufacturer of your boat if you can find the three MIC numbers in the serial number...http://www.uscgboating.org/recalls/mic_database.htm. This article explains the serial number system. system...http://www.boatus.com/consumer/hin.asp
Also the last two numbers of the serial number are usually the year the boat was made.
You are right …
HINs were not required until 1972, so very old canoes may not have a HIN. However, all canoes (all boats for that matter) made in the US and Canada since 1972 by law must have them. The format did change slightly in the 1980s but those prior to that are still easily figured out.
One issue is homemade canoes. Those beautiful strippers people make are suppose to have a HIN as well. However, few people know that and I’m sure fail to comply. By the way, the first three characters for those boats are supposse to be the two letter abreviation of the state it was made follwed by the letter “Z”. So a wood strip canoe built in Minnesota would have a HIN beginning “MNZ”. This, of course, replaces the manufacturer’s code.
So, the short of it is, EVERY boat/canoe made since 1972 legally must have a HIN. Of course reality is they don’t all have one for whatever reason.