I'm surprised that kind of thing doesn't happen a lot more often. Our bank (well, credit union) and our state DMV have absolutely no idea what federal boat documentation is. Our boat is documented, but we have a state title too which the state issued whether we wanted it or not, when we registered it here and paid the state sales tax. The state title is improper (or illegal, or null and void, whatever word you want to use) but I'll bet in a lot of non-coastal states the states and lenders will issue or want one anyway. Unlike that story, at least our fed documentation and state title show the same owner.