Jan 28, 2011 The hull number is usually broke into three segments; the manufacture code, serial number, and date of certification being the last set of characters. The year typically being two numbers ie. 98 being a 1998 year of manufacture.
The ISO standard also requires it to be there. The number itself also gives you some good information:The ISO form of the number is as follows:AA-BBB 12345 C900AA = country codeBBB = manufacturers code12345 = anything the builder wants to put to ID the boat. Can be letters or numbers.C = month of manufacture (A= January, B= February etc)9 = last digit of year of manufacture - here 9 for 199900 = model year - here a 2000 modelBe aware that sometimes the dates are a bit out if mouldings have been sat aroundfor a while.The earlier US form of the number is similar but does not have a country code - I guess that the Americans consider the US the BE the world!RegardsDuncan.