• House Bill 1933, Mandatory Safe Boating Education, Sponsor: Rep. Shirley Gomes
• House Bill 2557, Repealing Sales Tax on Boats Built or Rebuilt in MA Sponsor: Rep Frank M. Hynes
• Senate Bill 1686, Collection of Sales Tax By Vendors of Boats Sponsor: Sen. Richard T. Moore

• House Bill 1885, PWC in Municipalities, Sponsor: Rep. Thomas O'Brien

An Act Relative to Abandoned Vessels (H.1399) will amend existing laws to allow marinas and boatyards, with reasonable judicial process, to obtain title to certain vessels abandoned on private property that have remain unclaimed, represent a potential environmental liability, and for which efforts to seek remedy from the owner have been unproductive. H. 1399 seeks to streamline the process for lien holders to legally dispose of or sell vessels that have been abandoned on private property and are delinquent on payment for storage and services rendered.

Section 1: Permits filing legal proceedings in district court in addition to the existing superior court jurisdiction.

Section 2: If a lien exists on a vessel and the criteria have been met for presuming title to be abandoned, the lien holder is not required to go to court before selling the vessel at a public auction or otherwise disposing of the vessel. A title is presumed abandoned if all three of the following criteria are met:

(a) Certified mail notice was sent to any owner of record of the vessel, at the last known address, of the amount of the lien and proposed disposition or sale of the vessel;

(b) Legal notice of the lien and proposed disposition or sale was posted in a newspaper of general circulation in the city or town of any owner of record's last known address; and

(c) At least 30 days passed from the last such newspaper publication and no reply is received indicating an ability to satisfy the debt within 30 days of the reply.

The lien holder must file a notarized affidavit of the above criteria being met, with copies or originals of the foregoing documents, with the marine title division of the department of environmental police before disposing of the vessel. If the lien holder holds a public auction, upon receipt of the affidavit and documents, the marine title division shall issue an abandonment of title document to the lien holder and, after the auction, new title to the purchaser at public auction.

Any proceeds of sale in excess of any liens shall be placed in a commonwealth fund and held in the name of the former owner of record for 2 years, at which time the funds are available to the Commonwealth solely for removing vessels presumed abandoned from the public waterways.

1. It is a widespread misperception that the only time the marine dealer registration placard had to be displayed was when the boat was actively being demonstrated or sea trialed. THIS IS AN INCORRECT ASSUMPTION. If your inventory "floats," it must at all times display the dealer placard, dealer identification and the original of the dealer registration in order to comply with the law that states every vessel on the waters of the Commonwealth shall be registered. There is no limitation on duration of time a "demonstration vessel" may be in the waters of the Commonwealth provided it properly displays dealer registration plates;

To accommodate the anticipated flurry of applications for additional marine dealer registration numbers to cover all floating inventory, EPO has reiterated that there is no limitation on the number of dealer plates issued per dealership provided the need is reasonably demonstrated and verifiable. For example, if you are a shore side dealer with an average of 40 boats in your inventory and up to 20 boats are on display in the water at any one time, you should request at least 20 dealer registration numbers for your dealership. If, on the other hand, you are an inland dealer that maintains inventory on land but may demonstrate or sea trial up to 3 vessels at one time, then you should have sufficient quantify to insure that all boats being demonstrated carry registration placards. Marine dealer registration applications may be downloaded at www.mass.gov/dfwele/dle/instructionspage.htm#Boat.

2. If you do not currently hold sufficient dealer registration placards to cover your inventory you should apply immediately for additional numbers for floating inventory. In the short term, if you require permission to transport multiple vessels at the same time under a single dealer registration, a form is available that may be faxed or emailed to the EPO notifying them that you are "caravanning" a fleet of boats to a particular event e.g. boat show, rendezvous, alternate sales location etc. Soon this form with instructions will be available for download at the MMTA Members Only website.

3. The Environmental Police reminds MMTA members that displaying dealer placards on marina./boatyard workboats is an inappropriate use of dealer plates. Dealer plates are exclusively reserved for those vessels being demonstrated for sales promotional purposes and should not be affixed to marina capital equipment. If you have a workboat, towboat or similar vessel, it should be registered and titled just like any other machinery or vehicle you employ in the course of doing business.

L to R: Tina Marie Giambro, Jamy Madeja, Tom Cox, Leona Roach

L to R: Jamy Madeja, Tina Marie Giambro

MMTA Representatives meet in Washington DC with Rep. William Delahunt (2nd from L) and Larry Innis (center), MMTA's Advocate on Capitol Hill.

• Reauthorization of Wallop Breaux to insure funding of public and boater access;
• Reauthorization of Coastal Zone Management Act;
• Reauthorization of US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) budget to facilitate dredging projects;
• Recommend the USACE regular use of a programmatic general permit to relieve MA businesses who are trying to expand from a redundant layer of regulation;
• Recommend ongoing support for Workforce Development funding to promote marine trades employee education and training;
• Oppose any efforts to eliminate the 2nd home mortgage deduction as boaters rely on this deduction to make their purchase more affordable;
• Recommend recreational marine industry representation to the Regional Marine Fisheries Councils as part of the reauthorization of Magnusson/Stevens Act.
• Encourage support of and participation in the National Marina Day Celebration August 13th

MRAA Applauds NMMA Dealer/Manufacturer Agreement Efforts

Oak Park, IL, May 10, 2005: The Marine Retailers Association of America (MRAA) has announced that they believe the draft language for guidelines to a dealer/manufacturer agreement produced by a Task Force created in 2003 is a milestone in the recreational boating industry. The twenty-four member task force, comprised of eleven boat builders and thirteen dealers, met for three intense work sessions that were sponsored and facilitated thru sponsorship by GE Commercial Distribution Finance to find a non-legislative approach to better dealer manufacturer relations.

Glenn Mazzella, MRAA Chairman, made the following statement:

"The MRAA is pleased that the NMMA Dealer/Manufacturer Agreement Task Force has taken steps in the right direction in an attempt to create language that will ultimately result in what we hope will be standard issue for dealer agreements. The guidelines and contract language we have seen thus far seems to represent and address a large majority of the issues the MRAA membership has requested for more than 20 years. Having said that, there still remains work to do to make it a fair and equitable document. MRAA believes that ultimately all the pertinent issues will be addressed.

MRAA is excited to see these positive steps and NMMA can expect our full support once the final re-worked document is in place and actually being used by NMMA members. MRAA urges the NMMA Boat Manufacturers Board members to unanimously adopt the implementation of this agreement for their own dealers immediately."

The NMMA BMD Board and the full NMMA Board both passed the following resolution:

• Supporting the premise that all dealer manufacturer relationships should be memorialized in a written agreement
• Supporting the guidelines language developed by the dealer manufacturer task force, and
• Encouraging all boat manufacturers to adopt these guidelines in their dealer agreements as soon as practical.

The guidelines address various areas of operation between the two interests, including warranties, succession, territory, transfer, termination protocol, and sharing of financial data. Over sixty different boat brands have endorsed the new guidelines at this time and are prepared to implement them in their dealer agreements in either the2006 or 2007 model year. NMMA pledges to continue to work with manufacturers to increase the number of brands that buy into these guidelines and implement them with their dealers. "We have only completed phase one of this project," said Slikkers, "and we will not rest until all manufacturers understand the benefits of this approach."

MRAA encourages dealers to ask their manufacturers to use this new document.

• Braintree
• Carver
• Cohasset
• Duxbury
• Halifax
• Hanover
• Hingham
• Holbrook
• Hull
• Kingston
• Marshfield
• Middleborough
• Milton
• Norwell
• Pembroke
• Plymouth
• Plympton
• Quincy
• Randolph
• Rockland
• Scituate
• Weymouth

• Banner Ads are only available to MMTA members at the incredible low cost of $100 per month.
  
  
• Over 250,000 pages visited during the first four months of 2005!
  
  
• BoatMA.com is THE boating site for Massachusetts and New England.