This should serve as a red flag to buyers that the insurance company has declared the boat "a constructive total loss" – in common parlance, totaled.

The trouble is that similar requirements are not in place in any of the other Gulf states that bore the brunt of recent hurricanes. Tens of thousands of boats have been reduced to scrap during the past three years as a result of storms. The Insurance Journal estimates that, during Hurricane Katrina alone, almost 75,000 recreational boats were destroyed. It's a safe bet that a fair number of these wrecks will wind up in the hands of owners who have no clue about their histories.

'UP A CREEK'

"Many of these boats are sold 'as is, where is' by third-party liquidators," Robertson says. "The new owner may not know about hidden damages" until a stringer cracks or something major happens and repair efforts reveal the true extent of the destruction. At this point, the owner is really up a creek because marine insurance policies do not cover pre-existing conditions and owners have little or no recourse against sellers when boats are sold "as is."

"Right now, we have no jurisdiction" against boat dealers who sell salvaged vessels without warning buyers, says Rick Barrera, who manages the boat registration and titling program for Ohio. In the case of the Sea Sport described earlier, the buyer bears the burden of proving that the dealer knew the boat's history. According to BoatU.S. Magazine, protections afforded consumers by federal warranty law and state implied warranty provisions are limited when products are sold in "as is" condition.

Although a few Web sites purport to provide comprehensive background information about used boats, consumers should be skeptical, since there is no one clearinghouse for boat information, short of checking the records of each boat by calling the boat registration agencies in each state. However, this isn't an easy process and boat registration records available to the public do not include information about accidents or insurance claims.

The Sea Sport's starboard side showed evidence of "excessive trauma" on the stem, along the strakes and on the deck. "What is needed is a federal uniform vessel titling act adopted by all the states," says Robert S. Fisher, a maritime attorney in New Jersey and former chairman of the yacht finance subcommittee of the Maritime Law Association. State boat registration or numbering laws are in place because they are required by the Federal Boat Safety Act administered by the Coast Guard but the Act does not require states to adopt titling laws.

Nevada is one of three titling states that requires that salvage vessel titles be "branded." Fred Messman, the state's boating law administrator, cites a recent case. "The insurance company had totaled a vessel beyond repair and the next summer it was back here for registration from a 'new' owner," he recalls. "The insurance company had sold it for 'salvage' and someone bought it, reconstructed it and sold it. The new owner did not know it had been destroyed, rebuilt and then sold to him.

"We captured the HIN [in the process of registering the boat] and when that was entered it blocked the registration because it was marked as 'destroyed,'" Messman says. "To me this is a consumer protection issue and fraud."

LONGTERM PROBLEM

Despite a 1988 Congressional mandate to create a national Vessel Identification System (VIS), the lack of uniformity of state boat registration laws makes it virtually impossible to develop anything similar to the system already in place for automobiles. Besides helping law enforcement officials track stolen or abandoned vehicles, the system for automobiles also provides ownership and information about previous traffic accidents or traffic law violations.

A report by the Congressional General Accounting Office in 2002 shows why advocates of a vessel identification system don't expect the problem to be solved soon. Citing profound incompatibilities between the information gathering and sharing systems of states and the Coast Guard, the GAO found that many states are "unwilling or unable to commit the funds needed to participate."

Although the Coast Guard initiated a plan to develop VIS, "it is unable to estimate when it will develop a system that could upload, integrate and update states' data." State boating law officials say that they are hindered because each state gathers different information about boats and many use incompatible data processing programs.

"Fourteen years after legislation required the Coast Guard to develop a vessel identification system, no such system exists and future plans for developing the system are uncertain," concluded the GAO report. "The thing that will drive it is some kind of tragedy," comments maritime lawyer Fisher, predicting that a badly damaged vessel sold to an unsuspecting owner may eventually result in accident or injury and that this is one of the major reasons why salvage vessels should be marked.

Buyers can take some precautions. First and foremost, buyers should never rely upon a marine surveyor recommended by the seller or dealer. And, written into any sales agreement, even for "as is" sales, should be a statement that the seller has revealed everything he knows about the boat's existing or repaired damages.

For the owner of the Sea Sport and others like him, the only recourse may be litigation.