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Inflatable Boat Identification

A question came in today asking how old is my Inflatable boat and can I get detailed specifications for it. He wisely provided the Serial number which is the key.

The serial number (of any boat) is made up of groups of Letters and numbers, as follows;

XXXaaaaaZnnn  or very old configuration XXXaaaaanZnn

The XXX  is the Code given to the Boat Manufactures by the Coast Guard to Identify the vessel (example ACH is Achilles, XMO is AB Inflatables)..

The aaaaa is the Manufactures model and unit designator, where some times you can figure the model and sometimes you can't.

The Znnn or nnZn  holds the year, where with the Znnn the last 2 digits are the year, with the nnZn the 1st 2 digits are the year (at this point this would be a very old boat).

As an example  XMO42001B010 would be an AB inflatable - Ventus 10VL.

The specific unit in question here was Model SK-124 ACH 00146K788 where he knew the model which can not be determined from the serial number and the year here based on the serial number is 1988. The question was also could he still find the specifications for their boat. In this case yes because Achilles on their web site www.achillesinflatables.com allows you to down load their brochures all the way back to 1979. 

(lowermain)