Whenever you buy a vehicle like a car or van, you need to fill in a lot of paperwork. Just like with land vehicles, you need to complete forms and receive documentation to ensure that your vessel is fully documented. If you intend to take your boat outside of US waters, or maybe hope to establish a marine business, you will need to protect the vessel by asking for a US Coast Guard documentation certificate. This shows the Coast Guard that you have registered the boat and makes movement through international waters much easier. By completing this documentation, you will have something like a license plate for your boat, ensuring that everyone knows you are protected by the US.
Getting an Application Form
The first step to making an application for your certificate is to find the right application form from the Coast Guard. You might think that this is the easiest thing to do, but in fact it can be extremely complicated. This is because the USCG website is like any other branch of government, full of bureaucracy and complications that make it hard to know exactly what form you need to ask for. The limits and restrictions on asking for a USCG documentation, including mass of the boat and its purpose, can make it difficult to get the right form every time.
Completing the Paperwork
Getting the paperwork is just the first step towards getting the job done, and correctly completing the form can be just as hard. In most cases, you will need to fill in certain parts of the form and provide evidence to back up your claim, but in other cases, you will have to complete a separate part of the form. This makes it all very difficult to understand, and some applicants make a mess of their submission, meaning that the form is rejected, and the vessel owner has to start again right from the beginning. This can be both an additional expense and a waste of your precious time. However, if you attempt to complete the work yourself, you are likely to find yourself with this problem.
Accepting Assistance
Perhaps the most important step that you can take to ensure that all of your forms are correctly completed is to apply for assistance with this task. This means that you will need to seek the help of a professional body such as the Maritime Documentation Center. With the knowledge and experience to assist vessel owners with every stage of the process, our teams receive your application form, and check them thoroughly to ensure that they are suitable for submission. Making sure that you get the form completed correctly the first time around can be a great investment and will ensure that you get the documentation certificate that you need as soon as possible. To get the help of our teams when completing your US Coast Guard documentation forms, call us at (800) 535-8570 or email info@usvesselregistrar.us today.