Carver Owners Forum

Hello to all our fellow Canadian boater friends. My wife Tracy and I have recently purchased our new to us Carver 444. We would like to talk with any members who have gone through the Transport Canada Boat Registration process. We have spoke to TC officials on numerous occasions trying to make sure our forms are correct. We are getting different responses surrounding our tonnage calculations. If anyone has successfully navigated this process we would really like to chat. Our situation is because the boat exceeds 12 meters we have to file Form 4A. This is the form which calculates length. depth and breadth. This boat was a USGC documented boat and we have those measurements......the confusion seems to be around whether or not their is a superstructure/deckhouse. One official says none another says two ?
Thanks in advance

Ours was already registered in Canada when we purchased it so all I needed to do was a boat name and ownership change. That being said I did check the registration to see if they mention anything about superstructure/deckhouse however nothing there. Gross tonnage of mine makes no sense, how do they come up with 17.8? They did get the propulsion right at 552kw (370hp x 2 = 551.8kw)

I do not believe yours would be considered to have a superstructure/deckhouse as this seems to be pertinent to ships, not pleasure craft.

At the end of the day, nobody will ever check this document, at least nobody has ever seen mine in all my years of boating including coast guard inspections and multiple trips back and forth between Canada and the US. Even if they did check, it would be to see if you have it and not validate numbers on it.

Bottom line is you could put anything down and as long as it makes sense nobody is actually going to care. Unfortunately dealing with Transport Canada will get you conflicting info as you already found out. No different than any other governmental service.

Registration last 5 year FYI and then it needs to be renewed.

I agree.....I have imported a few things and trying to follow the rules is next to impossible as you are confronted with numerous officials with differing opinions based on their interpretation of the actual rules, Also it seems to depend on who you get on the phone at any given time etc.....good luck with your task.