a ? about selling homemade skiffs...

Discussion in 'Boatbuilding' started by lobsterman, Apr 11, 2011.

  1. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    Troy, Thank you for setting that straight. I'm sure your would not be surprised how many people don't know the Coast Guard is military. Even on military web sites and mainstream news services they often talk about "four services" forgetting there is fifth. Over the years I got tired of sending CNN nasty grams about their continual use of "the four military services".

    But the ones that really pis..... me off are the ones who say, 'yeah but you guys never go to war". The USCG has fought alongside the other services in every war the US has been in. As I write this there are CG people in Afghanistan at Baghram AFB handling dangerous cargo. Just ask Pres. Obama. He was surprised to find Coasties there too.

    Any way Dave has it right and PAR too. I was the manager of the database for boat manufacturers at USCG HQ. The are a little more than 12000 combinations made up of three letters. We can't use Y or Z because they are used by Canada, and importers usually get all the X's (there are exceptions). There are between 4000 to 4500 boat manufactures active at any time, but there are about 400 new ones every year and 400 who go out of business every year (more in hard times). Plus the rule was to not re-use a MIC unless the previous assignee had been out of business for ten years. This started in 1972, so we ran out of unused combos a long time ago. By the way there are some you can't use because they spell things we can't say on a forum, and boat builders don't want them for their MIC.

    Anyway, way back when they wrote the regulations, they realized this would happen so they assigned a three letter combo that ends in Z, to each state and territory . For instance Alabama is ALZ, Washington is WNZ and so on (They do not correspond to the postal abbreviations) So that uses up some combos, The Coast Guard is assigned HQZ, and there are a few other abritarily assigned MICs. Each state assigns an HIN with the state MIC to backyard built boats, boats that were built long before the law was enacted and a few others that fall through the cracks in the system.

    PAR is right. People at the CG and state offices read forums too. Eventually you will want to register it, or sell it, and then someone will ask for the proper paperwork. Or you will get stopped by some watercop who will get all excited about the fact your boat has no HIN and they will impound it for a long time until everything gets straightened out to their satisfaction, not yours!

    So it is far easier to just go to the state and fill out their silly form, pay them the $5 or whatever it costs, get your HIN and put it on the boat, than to put up with a lot of grief and hassle later on.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2011
  2. BATAAN
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    BATAAN Senior Member

    When I joined USCG in 1965 it was military service and law enforcement and aids to navigation and search and rescue and military mission support. For military instance we used to take a 300' ship, go to the middle of the north Pacific and loiter there all winter, waiting for a c130 full of US troops to have a problem and ditch near us so we could save them. Didn't happen, but we took constant weather balloon readings of winds aloft and radioed them to the folks that scheduled such aircraft. Didn't do much law enforcement but a great deal of servicing and manning remote aids to navigation and 2.5 years of active SAR motor lifeboat station time plucking naive persons and drunks from stupid places they had gotten themselves into, often involving 30' breaking surf on a notorious entrance bar.
    CG's mission has been changed on them, along with the boss, but they all love picking people out of sinking boats first, and that's why they join.
    Since we as a backwards looking and fading power insist on wasting our national treasure on criminalizing drugs, locking up millions for profit, vast wars for resources and religion, and rewarding criminal behavior at the highest levels of some predatory international corporations reducing our formerly robust and healthy nation to a sucked-dry hollow shell full of newly poor, it's not a surprise that the CG personnel now look like something out of a bad Black Helicopter nightmare. It's not their fault but the inevitable outcome of the system's 'maturation'.
     
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  3. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Ike, I come from a family with a long tradition of military service. I had five brothers, and the six of us all served. Out of the six, two enlisted in the Coast Guard from the get-go, and another joined a couple of years after finishing a four-year Army tour. Believe me, the Coasties weren't any lower in the family pecking order than the others....

    Of course, being Navy I had to get my digs in. When one brother told me he had signed up, I expressed my surprise: "How did they let you in? I thought Coasties all had to be six feet tall -- so they can wade ashore if their ships sink....":p
     
  4. BATAAN
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    BATAAN Senior Member

    The only time I heard the 6 foot joke was when I as a 18 year old CG was attending USN fire fighting school and charging into blazing steel boxes with a hose and a prayer. Everybody looks the same in the smoke and all you care about is the fire.
     
  5. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Of course, we didn't just pick on Coasties; most USN jokes about the Marines are unprintable.

    One that isn't:

    How did the Marines wind up as part of the Navy?

    --Back when they were dividing things up between the services, they did it alphabetically. When they got to the M's, they had Marines and Mules -- and it was the Army's turn to choose first.

    Which reminds me of the kid who was playing with a bucket of s*** in his front yard. A Marine walked by and asked, 'hey kid, what are you doing with that bucket of s***?"

    The kid answered, "making a sailor..."

    The Marine thought that was hilarious, and started calling his buddies over. Eventually there was a whole group of Marines standing around watching. Then a sailor walked down the street, and they all started in on him: "hey squid.... ask the kid what he's doing with the bucket of s***!"

    So the sailor shrugged and asked, 'Hey kid... what are you doing with that bucket of s***?" And the kid answered, ""making a Sailor...."

    The marines laughed and whistled and generally carried on. The unimpressed sailor asked, "so why aren't you making a Marine instead?"

    And the kid answered, "can't. Not enough s***...."
     
  6. BATAAN
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    BATAAN Senior Member

    No comment. But some of my best friends when I was 9 back in 1956 were a group of Marines from Camp Pendleton. First Black guy I ever met was one of them, Vic Morrow, incredible trumpet player in a jazz band, my father's friends, who understood combat and loss like he did, and on Christmas they saw to it I got a complete outfit, camo fatigues, helmet, shelter half, equipment, no weapons. I was the best dressed kid in town if you go in for the John Wayne look.
     

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  7. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    Bataan, you and Ijoined at the same time. I joined in 65 after the Selective Service told me I was going to be drafted. I too did mostly ocean stations back then. I was on 327's. In the 70's it was Fisheries Patrols. After I got a commission (yeah I was an officer, and my parents were married!) it was all desk work. I couldn't pay the detailers to send me to sea! Damn.

    That's why I retired. When they put us in DHS I said, that's it, I'm out of here, and put in my papers.

    Sure we all told Squid jokes and jarhead jokes, and so on, But two of my brothers were in the army (one a lifer like me) and the third was in the Air Force. Other members of my family have served in the Navy and Marine corps so I have great respect for all the services and what they do. Besides we Coasties often use their facilities for recreation, the commissary, medical and so on. Right now I am sitting on the shore of American Lake, in my motorhome, at Camp Murray Beach, the RV park on the Camp Murray Washington National Guard Base. The Coast Guard couldn't afford to have a facility like this. Retirement is good!
     
  8. lobsterman
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    lobsterman Junior Member

    Yes i understand that the C.G. is military and truely always has been so, (and deserves the utmost respect, and appreciation, as does each branch of the military).
    But what i was referencing was one of Obamas first acts in office, which was a barely publicized reclassification or military codification of the C.G. ( if some of you are familiar with that, all i will say is that the devil is in the details of that seemingly insignifigant act, which has great underlying ramifications).

    Also.... Given that most of my life, livelyhood, food, survival, work, and recreation is absolutely dependant upon natural resources, perhaps i am a bit ahead of many of you in seeing all of our Rights being violated on a daily basis !!!, . I am sorry to wake you, but we are now facing the greatest loss of Rights, Freedoms, Liberty,and access to all forms of life sustaining Natural Resources, it is far worse than many people realize.

    The Free Trade Acts stole away our jobs and industries !!!, Obamacare was the government claiming ownership over our very lives !!!. The Patriot Act is the government granting itself unilateral immunity from the usurping and violating all Americans Consititutional Rights, and putting the USA under an authoritarian ruled society. Eniviromental laws are being used to steal away America's remaining jobs and industries, The Food safty and agricultural bills stole away our Rights to Food, Sustinance, and Ultimate survival, and international agreements have stolen our nations sovereignty !!!.
    Here are a few of our Rights that the U. S. government is now directly violating on a daily basis, our... Natrural, Civil, Constitutional, Resource, Parental, Financial, Privacy, Medical, Religious, educational, Etc. Etc. Etc.

    So no i was not kidding or being crass when i was saying i will no longer comply, or obey a government that is imposing a criminal globalist control agenda over us all. I am withdrawing consent, and denouncing the governments control over my life and existance.

    Sorry, I've got to run, i'll try to reply back a bit more in a while, Thanks.
     
  9. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    OK, this I have to know. What did Obama do to 'reclassify' the Coast Guard as military? I repeat: it's always been military. You can't start coming down on it now just because the guy you didn't vote for is President... and I can't find anything online about Obama doing anything at all to or with the Coast Guard.

    Good luck with that unilateral secession from the country. We had a guy here who declared himself the ruler of a sovereign nation comprised of his five-acre home -- thereby claiming he owed no allegiance (and especially no taxes) to the state or federal government.

    He's lucky that no one hired me to deal with him. I'd have built a border fence around his five acres, established a check point at the end of his driveway, refused him a visa, and deported his illegal-alien butt back to his own country every time he tried to leave for work or go on a grocery run.:D
     
  10. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    Me too. What? As far as i know, it's been military since 1790 when Revenue Cutter C.O.s were given Naval Commissions.
     
  11. Saildude
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    Saildude Junior Member

    During times of war the Coast Guard has been transferred into the Navy - in WWII Coast Guard personnel manned Navy ships - My father was in the CG in WWII and part of his service was on a Navy Troop transport and medical ship. The CG also served in Viet Nam and there have been several deaths of CG and CG Reserve people in Iraq.

    Bush created the Department of Homeland security and transferred the CG from the Treasury Dept into the DHS - I am a member of the CG Aux. and we moved with the CG and I have a certificate signed by Duct Tape Tommy Ridge attesting to my being a Charter Member of the DHS.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2011
  12. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

  13. DCockey
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    DCockey Senior Member

    Minor point - the Coast Guard was part of the Department of Transportation from 1967 until it became part of the DHS.
     
  14. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    And before that it was in the Treasury Department since 1790.
     

  15. Saildude
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    Saildude Junior Member

    So much for my bear trap memory -
     
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