As regular readers may know, I recently bought a used C-Dory 22 Cruiser. I love my little boat. It came with a nice suite of Raymarine electronics: C-80 multifunction display, GPS, radar, autopilot, and Ray54 VHF radio. It’s this last unit I want to talk about today.

What a nice little unit. It’s got DSC, which means, among other things, that I can hold down the “distress” button for three seconds and the radio will automatically send out a distress call, complete with my current position from GPS and my MMSI number. This MMSI number is important, because it allows the authorities to look me up in the big MMSI database and know all about my vessel.

Oh wait, the radio won’t broadcast my MMSI number. Actually, it will send out the previous owner’s MMSI number. Hold on, that can’t be right. Oh, I see: OK, so I need to apply for a MMSI number from Boat/US, and then update the MMSI number programmed into the radio. Boats (and installed VHF radios) change hands all the time; there’s got to be a simple way to update the MMSI number. As a matter of fact, there is…NOT!

Apparently, MMSI numbers can be programmed into some VHF radios three times, and then the unit has to be sent back to the manufacturer to be reset. This may be true for other models, but it is not true for the Ray54. This unit allows you to enter the MMSI number once only, and after that the entire unit must be sent back to Raymarine to reset it. This is stated clearly in the Owner’s Handbook: “Once obtained, you can program the MMSI number yourself one time only using the
operation described in My MMSI ID on page 72.”

I didn’t quite believe it, but I’ve confirmed it on the telephone with Raymarine support as well as several dealer/installers. I even attempted to hack into the unit with some secret key combinations (hold down some combination of two or more buttons while powering up, which may work with some Raymarine VHF radios). No luck. The unit has to be disconected and demounted, packaged, shipped, reset by Raymarine, shipped back, and reinstalled. Wow. This seems like a lot of work.

But last night I got an email from the boat’s previous owner: “When I logged in Boat/US to register my new boat, the system requested I cancel the old number to make it available to the new buyer. That implies that you don’t need to change the number – and could now have it assigned to you. But I sure couldn’t figure out how – maybe you can. Seems easier than sending the radio back.”

Indeed it does. I’m interested…very interested. So this morning, I got on the computer, I got my telephone, and I chased it down. Although there is no such function built in to Boat/US’s MMSI website, there is a way to accomplish this: Call my new best friend, Boat/US’s Kristin Loyd, at 800-563-1536. Once the previous owner has released the old MMSI number, she can have that number reassigned to you. Easy!