A lot more goes into owning a boat than you may realize at first. While you may purchase your ship with the intent of going out and enjoying time with your friends and family, fishing, swimming, snorkeling, or just traveling to warm, exotic places, you have to work at maintaining your boat to keep it in the best running order possible, so it is safe and seaworthy. Beyond your care for the boat, there are also legal obligations, such as registering the boat with your state authority or documenting the boat on a federal level. If you decide documentation is the way you want to go, you will be dealing with the Coast Guard Vessel Documentation Center to get the paperwork that you need.
What Documentation Provides
Documenting your vessel can be a better option for you than registration with your state. In fact, many financial institutions insist upon documentation if you want to get backing and funding for a mortgage or financing for your boat purchase. The documentation acts as a stronger guarantee for them that they will get preference if anything should ever happen where there are difficulties with your lien. As a boat owner, the documentation does provide you with some benefits. The one benefit people cite the most is that they are afforded easier security clearances when sailing to foreign countries. The documentation helps to facilitate getting through security and provides you with legal protections under the U.S. flag.
Working with the Documentation Center
The Coast Guard Vessel Documentation Center is responsible for handling all documentation requests for commercial and recreational vessels today so they can be quite busy each day with the paperwork that needs to come through their facility. If you are looking to document your boat or need to renew, get an abstract, or require a new copy of your Certificate of Documentation (COD), you will need to fill out applications and deal with the documentation center. Because they deal with many applications, processing can take a long time, and if you make any mistakes or omissions, your requests can be delayed even further. Another common complication is that some applications can only be submitted by regular mail.
Smoothing Dealings with the Coast Guard
When you know you will need to work with the Coast Guard Vessel Documentation Center, you may want to consider using our services at the Maritime Documentation Center to make things better for you. We are a private agency of experts that can help facilitate paperwork you need to get to the documentation center. We provide all the forms online so you can do everything electronically, and then let our expert processors examine your applications to make sure they are accurate before sending them to the documentation center for approval. With our help, you can get the paperwork or approvals you need faster so that you have fewer worries about the status of your paperwork and you get what you need so you can use your boat with the proper certifications in place.