FAA N numbers list owners, why can't one find boat CF number owners?

Question

I'm trying to find a boat I once owned to see if it still floats. I have CF number, but apparently this is a privacy issue. This is odd since one can look up a FAA N number to find who owns it. So the argument is specious at best. I do not want to contact the owner directly, only to see if the old boat still is registered.

Answer 1

Boats are registerd and tracked by each state, similar to vechiles lincence plates.

Aircraft are tracked by the the FAA ( a federal govermernment agency).  Another reason is that aircraft are harder to track because of the way the travel, so an open regeistry makes for easy ID.