[MartinAlabama]

I have a 2000 Shabah. I just received a notice from the Alabama revenue office regarding the renewal of my tag registration. The Notice claims that the "Make" - Mariah does not agree with the first three characters of the HIN... which are MAB. As you may know, the first three characters represent the Manufacturer code. I assumed all Mariah Boats utilize MAB as the Manf. Code. Is this the case with your boat? Has anyone else had this problem? Does your Hull ID start with with MAB? Thanks in advance.

[ShabahZ280]

Every Mariah Boat built prior to 2003 has a hull ID of MAB. The revenue office needs to know your boat is manufactured by "Mariah Boats Inc." and not "Mariah Boat Company" which is built by Sea Fox. Their hull ID#'s begin with VMH. I'm sure they're just using Sea Fox's VMH instead of Mariah Boats Inc's MAB.

Let us know how things go.

[MartinAlabama]

THANKS! Great info. Now.. the hurdle of getting revenue office to understand.

[MartinAlabama]

Is there somewhere I can get an official comment or notification as you provided? I am not sure the Revenue office will take a printed message board comment as official enough.

[ShabahZ280]

This should help! It's from the USCG's Boating Safety Division

USCGBoating.org MIC Database - Mariah

From here you can see the difference between the two Manufacturer Identification Codes and the registered companies. But if you click each one's MIC, it'll show you the registered company information, which shows the years of production. I'd print both of them out so you can prove your boat is in fact made during the manufacturing dates of Mariah Boats Inc. (MAB)