Wing tip is documented and as far as I know it is not done to beat sales tax. We certainly paid it in California.
You document a vessel for insurance; the Coast Guard is obliged to recover a stolen documented vessel. A vessel with a state tag is the states problem. There was/is a scam to take foreign delivery and keep the boat out of the country for several months to avoid paying sales tax but don't get caught. I think it is now treated as tax evasion or conspiracy to commit tax evasion if you agree to buy after seeing it in the US and magically don't complete the deal until after it is out of the country. Wing Tip makes the tonnage but she is significantly bigger than a C27, so I'll leave that one to a C27 skipper to answer. It's not a floating displacement but a total hull volume displacement. You might also look at the Fisheries database for documented vessels and see if you can find a C27 built before '93 in there. Phil Agur <http://www.catalina27.org/public_pages/profile270.htm> s/v Wing Tip C270 LE #184 MMSI 366901790 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of baileyedwards123 Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 2:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [IC27A] Coast Guard Documentation Hey gang, I'm a new Catalina 27 owner (well, at least the 1985 boat I bought is new to me...) and was considering documenting the vessel with the Coast Guard. It seems that the one-time $133 USCG Documenting Fee would be much less than the 6% registration tax in DC plus the yearly renewal fees. Anyway, have any of y'all done this for your 27's? Do the Catalina 27s meet the tonnage requirements? Are there any pitfalls I should know about? Thanks, and any advice would be appreciated! Bailey [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
