I am starting to get a little confused :-s about the ages of hobie 16s based on hull numbers/sail numbers.

The boat i broke in half had the sail number 19,017 but came with an older looking mainsail. It had the number 643 stamped on the pylons but i am beginning to believe these numbers may be batch numbers for the aluminium mast section or something. Just bought another hobie with painted hulls (going to scratch off the paint and try to find hull numbers) and a number in the 22xx range on the REAR pylons. Sail number is 80something thousand or so, cant remember right now.

I know sail numbers are batched by area and aren't necessarily in chronological order. Anyone know how to age the hulls without resorting to cutting them in half and counting the rings?

Ben