Electronic boat registry: it’s there, but it works poorly

After years of struggle, SISTE(Sistema Telematico Centrale della Nautica da Diportistica), with the Central Register of Boats and the Sportello Telematico del Diportista (STED), went into operation last year. Goodbye paper registers kept in harbor master’s offices that do not talk to each other, making it nearly impossible to trace the ownership of a boat, and barrage of Finance Guard checks at sea and ashore.

Full operation was achieved last November and, in theory, involves steps quite similar to those of the automobile registry. STEDs, on the other hand, are real agencies located throughout the country and in telematic connection with the central database – serving users for all operations of registration and deregistration of recreational units in the relevant registers and the issuance of navigation documents. All beautiful. We repeat: in theory.

SOMETHING DOESN’T WORK IN THE TELEMATICS REGISTRY

We spoke with some Italian boatyard managers and our enthusiasm was deflated: it seems that to register a new boat the timeframe has stretched to 45 to 60 days. But wasn’t the Central Telematics Registry supposed to be the tool to simplify and speed up processes?

The cause? The computer system simply malfunctions. Such a long wait time risks crowding out the new market: yards launch the boat on time, but the owner cannot use it until it is registered. At the risk, perhaps, of missing the vacations and other hassles resulting from late delivery. Theoretically, the boat could sail with temporary license plates (so-called “test plates” but this is an impractical solution: there must be a mandatory employee of the shipyard builder on board.

BIBLICAL TIME, WHY?

But why does it take up to almost two months, when previously “paper” registration took only a week?

Let’s start with the agency that handles the registration: this must first apply for the code that qualifies for the opening of the boat registration file, which is issued by Confindustria Nautica (born from the union of UCINA and Nautica Italiana) in five days. Having obtained the code, the agency proceeds with uploading the scanned documents and boat and attachments to the portal. And here comes the first “stumble”: these are often heavy files, these cause the system to crash. They told us that when the system crashes, the session expires and then you have to start over again, and that sometimes it took days and days!

The rigmarole, which is very long, is repeated for all new licenses, for remotorization licenses, and whenever it is necessary to transmit the boat’s technical data, which the shipyards sent in original to the agency.

But we are only halfway through: once the agency completes uploading all the documents needed for registration on STED, there is one more step. On average, it takes 15 to 25 days for him to obtain the telematic license, with which he will go to the Port Authority offices to formalize the registration.

What if some mistake is made in uploading documents? You have to do it all over again. The problem is that you cannot know this until the file is taken over by the portal operators (and even here, several days pass): if inaccuracies are found, it skips the file and you have to do it all over again.

From the series, office complications simple business. Is it possible that we have only talked to operators and construction sites that have had a bad experience with the electronic registry, that these are just isolated cases? Highly unlikely, not impossible. And that many matriculation agencies are not ready at the “mindset” level for the new digitization? A big boh too. We are only at the beginning of this progressive computerization, some malfunction is physiological, but it seems to be understood that the system needs much improvement. We will keep you informed.

In the meantime, if you too have had problems with the new registry and STEDs, please write to us about your experience at sp******@***********re.it

G.S.