Epic codes

I'm in the market for a second hand Epic V8 in Australia. There are very few available and when I see one I'd like to know the manufacturing date.
I've looked through an old forum on this site and the conclusion seemed to be that the last three numbers of the GIP string were the manufactured date e.g.909 was September 2009.
One ski I'm looking at is GIP17753I122 and EKI2019. So what is the mfg date of this ski please. 

Hmm...  Doesn't seem consistent with what we understood.

From what we had before, it would mean the boat model/design is 2019, which would make sense.  But I122 would mean manufactured in December 2022, which doesn't.  Perhaps they screwed up the numbering and it was actually built in December, 2020.  I've sent Epic a message to ask.

I bought a new Epic in mid 2017 that has “218” as the last 3 digits of the code. I doubt they’ve been  “screwing up the numbering system” for years.

The date does not start in January, it's like the tax year it starts sometime in the middle of the year. I think it starts in August or September. 
You could not get a much newer ski.

I have received a reply from Epic Australia explaining the codes, see below.  The last 2 letters of the GIP code are supposedly the build year but are actually the 'model year' as adopted by vehicle manufacturers. I don't agree with this logic but I guess it is like the date on a magazine, usually November's edition comes out in October..... Ho hum.Hi Brian,  Thanks for your email and for your interest in our serial numbers. The key date are the last two digits of the longest number, which tells you it was built in the second half of 2021 (similar to a car model, we click over our year approx halfway through). The other code is the copyright date, in this case 2019. The other numbers in the longer sequence are internal numbers so we can track the build date by month and even batch. Please don’t hesitate should you wish to discuss the above in any further detail, I am certainly available to you during business hours. Thanks Brian, speak soon. Kind regards,  Andrew 

Kinda makes sense if the 2021 model release boats come out in the previous year, much like many products, buyers would have issues if their 2021 year model boat had a 'build' date stamp of 2020...

Also means that boats we assume are 2020 build etc due to their number may actually be older, as 2019 build boats, for example....At the end of the day its all splitting hairs anyway, the model year release is more important than how long its been sitting in the retail chain since rolling out of the factory

So we know the code identifies the date of manufacture, but we still don’t know how to decipher the code. A fairly unhelpful response from Epic, I’d suggest. 

Motor vehicles have a clearly identifiable date of manufacture, which is entirely separate from the model year.

….and the Epic model year release date is entirely useless if you’re trying to work out the age of the second hand (or possibly even new) boat you’re considering buying. The CURRENT model Epic V8, for example, has a model year release date of 2010. So buying a boat based on it’s model year date, when it has a 10-odd year (and counting) potential manufacture date window, is not exactly “splitting hairs” for most people.