IMCA Forum

I guess I will be told its right under my nose but I can not find a moth boat register.
If there is one where is it and how do I access it?
Can it be searched by boat name?
by sail number?
by builder?
Thank you in advance

A registry of moths is something the class really neads but its way too late to catch up on the confused history of boat numbers, and sail numbers.

For example in Australia alone we have had now 4 different series of boat numbers.

Beginning in Inverloch in 1932 the numbers strated at 1 for Olive and grew to a few hundred as the class extended out of victoria. In the 50s it became a national class and a new system was intoduced with the thousands digit representing the states, 2*** for NSW, 3*** for Vic etc, a bit like the radio stations of the time and like long distance phone numbers now.

Then when the class became internatiuonal in the late 60s? they gave up the state prefixes and started again at 8000. This grew to over 9000 until a few years ago. In the mean time ISAF introduced their blue builders Plaques to collect their levee and these had yet another number on them.

When the foiling boats started to get sold across country borders it became increasingly confusing as old boats got a new number it a new country, so the class internationally adopted yet another system which gives the boat the sail number of its ISAF plaque. The first boats with this sytem in Aus has numbers in the 3000s and internationally they are now close to 4000.

In Aust the registry is held at Yachting Australia. But they only have boats which owners have registered with them, or who have transferred ownership details when boats are sold. Plaques are purchased form the association by builders and supplied with new boats but only the builders and the new owners know who has what number and there is no class registry of where they go. At least this way ISAF gets a cut even if the boat and owner never join the class association or race in a regatta.

Combine this with the slackness of our members to fully register their boats with YA and the slackness of new owners to complete tranfer details with YA, the YA record is very incomplete.

As AUS class secretary I have a print out of their record since the comencement of the 8000 series and I would say that only about 10% of the record for the last few years is accurate. People like my self and Scott babbage who have owned a lot of boats are still shown as owners of most of them. Many newish boats even at the front of the field are not even there at all.

Some of the problem is the registation procedure and some is our combined slackness in enforcing our rules. Scott is going to try and streamline th eprocedure with YA but we will still have to comply.

So short answer to your question is no. Your Number could be on any of several registries, in different countries if they still exist.

Phil Stevenson

Thank you for the excellent explanation.
The number you see in my profile pic is a Victorian 60's scow.
If I can't find a home for it then it will be another page of history lost to land fill.

Russell

Reading your reply once more, am I right in assuming that this is number 96 in Victoria from when the numbers changed in the 50's
Perhaps this yacht is earlier than I thought it could be a 1950's boat.

It has to be worth saving surely, its history.

There is a database on boats on this site. You can access there data here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/boats.xml

If you register and are a member (which means you are on a committee or your committee confirms you are a member) then you can add boats to this database.

If someone sells a boat they can reuse a boat in the database or enter a new one. This means the Boat for sale feature on this site feeds this database.

There are many numbering schemes and the top ten in the world get to use a personal number not a boat number. This means we have not idea about what boats are out there. You can see the gaps in the boat database on this site here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/Stats.jsp

All the best,

Doug

Doug, where did the 5 vand 6 digit numbers on your registry come from? Do we really need yet another set of numbers with no special meaning?
Phil S

Lots of gaps in those charts too.
I understand from Thorpey that about 30 Hungry Tigers were built.
I think there were about 250 Bladeriders and
I have a new Mach2 delivered this month and its numbered 235. But has Plaque (and sail No) 3905.
Phil S

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 15/03/2012 08:55:25

The ID are either the ISAF number or a database primary key id. I need this to link to the boat if the ISAF number is not knowen.

I can import data but I need more that the builder and number of boats built.

You can register individual boats here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/imca/faces/AddNewBoat.jsp

All the best,

Doug