After about a year of back and forth with the US government, Illusion is Coast Guard documented. Documentation is like a passport for your boat, it’s required to clear in just about anywhere (trust me, no one knows who or what South Carolina is unless they watch the Daily Show). It’s a first, big step to getting out of the country. Now we just need to get out of the boat yard……
It took a long time for me to get my documentation, but not because it’s a complicated process. Just go to Coast Guard’s Documentation Center Website. Download the handy PDF forms which you can email back to them once you’ve completed them. All you need is some basic info about your boat (year made, weight, etc. etc.), Bill of Sale and your state registration. I kept emailing my stuff in without my registration for some reason. For once, I found dealing with the federal bureaucracy relatively easy. I always got a live, human being when I called the the Documentation Center and they were plenty helpful and easy to deal with. I’m not sure why there are so many services out there to help you document your boat? Maybe I need to go into business charging people $500 to fill out a few forms and email them in
Once you’re issued a number, you have to permanently mount that number somewhere in the boat, I’m thinking we’ll carve ours in at some point using a wood burner or something along those lines.