"Don White" wrote in
news
Land of the Free ....eh? Nothing free about boating down there.
The only registration I pay on my 19 foot mini-cruising sailboat is
$35.00 yearly to license the trailer.




Oddly enough any kind of trailer, boat trailer, horse trailer, cargo
trailer isn't taxed or even licensed in SC until the TRAILER weighs
something like 6500 pounds, exclusive of load! Camping trailers have
their own license tags and rules.

Someone gave me a 9'6" hard plastic dingy, the kind Waste Marine sells
for $500. As long as I didn't have a motor for it, even an electric, it
was untaxed and unregistered. But, another friend gave me a nearly new
3hp Yamaha outboard for fixing his outdoor house security lights. NOW I
had to REGISTER the tiny boat as if it were a 35' CC offshore fisherman
with twin 300hp Merc outboard...$35/3 years....plus pay Charleston County
PP tax on it, about $18/year. The outboard is under 5hp so isn't titled
or licensed or taxed. Outboards over 5hp have their own license
stickers, separate from the boat, PP tax load and registered title. This
nearly eliminated outboard motor theft, which used to be an awful
problem, here. If you're caught riding around in a
untitled/tax/registered '57 Evinrude Sportwin, you go to jail as a felon!
They're real serious about it, too!

The registration numbers on the tiny dingy are nearly as big as the
hull!...(c; My numbers have to be the same size as that 35' CC offshore
fisherman!

Sailboats, even those without motors, are all SC registered/titled/taxed.
Well, someone gave me a free Sunfish, a "sailboat" in SC. It had never
been registered/titled/taxed and I thought nothing of it, even though
Sunfish boats are amazingly expensive, the parts moreso! I was
"cruising" on the Ashley River, tacking like mad against the outgoing
tide as the damned wind dropped, when this DNR copboat all dressed up
like Marines in OD Green uniforms, complete with flak jackets, orders me
to stop. I figure they're going to look for major drugs in the cockpit I
can hardly fit my feet and a sixpack cooler into. They might have wanted
to see what kind of beer was in my cooler??

So, this SWAT team wannabee starts asking me about the Sunfish! It had
no motor, of course, and he wanted to know why it had no registration!
Huh?? He tried to tell me it was a sailboat, like Flying Pig is a
sailboat. I had no idea what the law was on tiny sailing vessels. I
didn't figure I could outrun their triple 250hp outboards so had to play
along. One of the other SWAT wannabees let the cat out of the bag that
this boat MIGHT be considered a windsurfer, which isn't
titled/taxed/registered in SC. My ears perked right up and I finally
talked my way out of it using that. It was too close to call so they
left, right after I mentioned I'd ask my attorney on Monday morning to
get a ruling. They also spotted another boat to harrass barreling down
the river at 60 knots full of bikini-clad young girls....a sure decoy.

Boating laws and this illegal search and seizure crap American waterways
seems to be subjected to at will, keeps me from buying another
boat...especially a TAXED-TO-DEATH new boat!

Larry
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