All boats in Alaska are required to have a Hull Identification number. This comes with a new boat purchase, or in the case of a homebuilt boat, gets assigned by the Alaska Department of Transportation.

The primary location of the assigned HIN is required to be affixed to the outboard side of the starboard side of the transom. I used my soldering iron to burn through the fiberglass into the wood of the transom.

The HIN is cleaned up and painted over.

A required duplicate location of the assigned HIN also had to be affixed in an unexposed location on the interior of the boat or beneath a fitting or item of hardware. In my case I just burned it into the inside bottom of the transom well.

The HIN is different from the boat registration number, which has to be renewed every three years. The HIN is like a VIN number for a vehicle, and the registration number is analogous to a vehicle's license plate number. I purchased a numbering kit from Cabela's, and applied the required alpha-numeric combination to each side of the bow. The green tag trailing the numbers says that this registration number is paid up into the year 2011.