[THEFERMANATOR]

I did some checking, and it looks like you need to have the 20 seperated from the rest. The first 3 digits indicate the make of vessel, the next 5 is the hull serial number, and the last 4 indicates the date it was manufactured. From what I could find some manufacturers used 4 numbers for date of manufacture, 2 numbers for the month, and 2 numbers for the year. Or they used a letter(I'm guessing for the day), 2 numbers for the year, followed by a letter to indicate the month of manufacture. So your hull ID number breaks down to WEL for WELLCRAFT, A3824 for the hull ID number, and M80F for date of manufacture of Jaunuary 1980. The 20 at the end just means 20 foot hull, and shouldn't be part of the HIN. So if you drop the 20, or move it over, your HIN will be configured correctly for a vessel being manufactured from 1975-1984, and your HIN corresponds with it.

Some reading regarding HIN's. http://www.iboats.com/blog/how-to-id...ull-id-number/