Boat Owners May Have To Get Titles

Tennessee powerboat owners may have to get titles for those boats within the next three years.

The measure pits boat manufacturers against their own dealers – who have always opposed such a scheme.

Senate sponsor Tim Burchett of Knoxville says it will make it harder to steal and re-sell boats. He says the state is 14th in boats sold, but 7th in the nation for boats being stolen.

“It’s just been a feeding ground for these boat thieves. And they can launder stolen boats from surrounding states, and with all the other state titling boats, and you just create an attractive area for people to dump their stolen boats, and with Katrina, all the boats that were actually sunk and then salvaged and then brought up here to Tennessee … it’s well known.”

But West Tennessee boat dealer Bob Keast says owners who have inherited old boats may have no legal way to prove where the boat came from. He says the titling measure will create a huge headache.

“Nobody has asked the marine dealers. You see we’re going to have to be the ones that go and try to come up with 277,000 pieces of … MSO’s, manufacturers statement of origins.”

The Senate Environment Committee approved the bill that puts the titling authority in hands of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which is responsible for boating safety. The TWRA had tried to avoid the licensing authority, arguing that it isn’t set up to do the paperwork.

The new titles would be required for boats now registered by TWRA – which doesn’t include canoes and small boats without motors.

Powerboat owners would have to begin getting the licenses in 2008.

WEB EXTRA

Burchett’s bill is SB 784. In the House it is HB 1921, sponsored by Democratic Caucus Chair Randy Rinks of Savannah.

Joyce Johnson lobbys for the National Marine Manufacturing Association, which wants the bill. She says it makes sense given the rising property value of boats.

“What this bill would do, it would require boat owners to title their boats, just like you do with an automobile. Very few people today are buying $400 boats, they’re buying $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 boats.”