Hull Identification Numbers (HIN)
Like a birth certificate for your boat, your Hull Identification Number (HIN) is a 12-character identifier required by the US Coast Guard. A HIN must be em bossed, carved, burned, etched or otherwise securely fastened to every vessel made or imported for sale in the U.S. after 1972. The HIN is analogous to the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) found or every car, truck and motorcycle manufactured in the U.S. The long string of letters and numbers contains a wealth of information for manufacturers, law enforcement agencies and organization like the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the nation’s premier non-profit organization dedicated to fighting insurance fraud and theft.
The numbers assigned to a boat identify it by the name of the manufacturer, by the date of manufacture and by serial number. Take the example of DMA03173L880, which might appear on the upper right-hand portion of a boat's transom. The first three letters represent the manufacturer's code. The next five digits are the hull's serial number. The last group of characters represents the date of manufacture and certification. For vessels built or imported between November 1, 1972 and August 1, 1984, the month of manufacture is a letter code that starts with August as "A," September as "B," etc. Some HINS show month and year of manufacture as four digits, as in 0381 for March, 1981. On boats built or imported after August 1, 1984, the code changes to "A" for January, “B” for February, etc. So DMA03173L899 indicates a boat built by Dougherty Marine and certified in December 1989, with a serial number of 03173.

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