Truck Shipping experience?

[mikep996]

Anybody had a 53MY shipped across country by truck? It sounds like a terrible idea to me with a huge potential for damage. Naturally I'd like to find a boat locally but I don't want to rule out any options.

Thanks,

MikeP

[Jackman]

Mike,

Mine, as you know by now, is a 1985 32ft FB. With the enclosure on the flybridge down and everything I could possibly remove removed it just barely met the 13'6" maximum for being on the road/going though bridges and tunnels. Your boat would be significantly larger than mine and I'd guess proportionally higher and wider. Are you sure this is possible? Its probably more fun to take it from "point A to point B"

[jim rosenthal]

Mike, you are talking about a lot of expense either way. To justify shipping a 53MY coast to coast, it would be very expensive- only one route, lots of escort vehicles, tons of permits. Sure it can be done but I'll bet it would cost $25-$30K. Just a WAG.
To bring the same boat by water...well, lots of hours, transit the Panama Canal, etc etc- big undertaking to say the least.
One possibility might be a combination of the two- coming East, trucked to, say, Mobile, put the bridge back on and run it across the Gulf and across the Florida waterway and up the East Coast.
Before I undertook anything like this, I would call the factory and ask them about it- they have sold boats on the West Coast for decades and can tell you how they got there. There is a third alternative which is the best; have the boat shipped as deck cargo on a freighter equipped and built to ferry yachts specifically. There was a thread on this not too long ago here, adn there are companies that specialize in trans-oceanic shipping of big pleasure boats. Probably at a high price. But at least you don't have to take the boat apart and you don't have to pile up a ton of hours on the engines and ships' systems.
Now, if you are planning to buy a Hatteras LRC and are retired with lots of free time, why, hell, just make the trip yourself....:rollin

[PascalG]

southern boating mag had a recent article on Dockwise Yacht transport www.yacht-transport.com

they have a number of yacht transporters, purpose built freighters that are "sunk" so that yachts can be floated on and secured in cradles. I';ve seen them in ft lauderdale, real impressive system!

not cheap, they mention 20k from FTL to Costa Rica for a 50 footer... they also serve northen mexico and Britsh columbia. something about non us flag vessels not provide us to us service....

no special preparations needed... not cheap but probably an altrenative to trucking.

pascal

[dshuman]

Here's one of the guys that does ocean transport.
www.sevenstar.nl/ (http://www.sevenstar.nl/)

[Geoff58]

Weve found, boat for boat, the best deals in Fla vs Calif.
That said, over the past 6 years weve purchased 2 boats in Fla and run them on their own bottom to SF Ca. Taking your own boat through the Canal is the experience of a lifetime, not to be missed if you can do it. However our latest purchase, a Hatt58yf, we used in the Abacos over the winter and put on Dockwise (the ship that 'sinks') in FtLauderdale in late Feb04 and were in SanDiego 13 days(!) later. Amazingly easy to do, we didnt even lower the antennas or canvas. Drive on, drive off.
The cost?? All I can say here is take the time to go on a ship that isnt full or servicing a fishing tounement or something. If youre patient, the price can PLUMMET from the original quotes because they need to fill the loads (ships).
the dockwise people were great on both ends and Id do it again in a minute. Trust me, much much easier than trucking.
We trucked an Ocean 48 SF from FLA to Sf and it was a saga to say the least.

[antiqua7hotmailcom]

I am looking to move our 53' Hatteras MYfrom, Austin, Texas to San Diego...Any help in this venture would be appreciated. also does any know the correct height w/o flybridge 1971 53' Hatteras. I am checking into Dockwise.

[Geoff58]

Austin to SD should be easy if you get a US trucker to take your 53 from Austin straight down to Mexico. Then he crosses over the top of MX and delivers the boat to Baja Naval in Ensenada. A great full service yard. Now your only 60m from SD
This is relatively painless trip, no excort cars, no permits etc and the boat can go almost fully rigged (w/o antennas etc). Make sure the trucker puts plywood along the hull to protect from stone chips though. Baja Naval can assist in this effort.
To go from Austin to meet dockwise then to Ensenada isnt worth the $$

[Mike]

Been there done that, shipped my 53' 1972 MY in 2002 from Ft. Lauderdale to Vancouver BC on Dockwise transport. It cost $28k which was about the same price as shipping from Texas to San Diego by truck. Dockwise now stops in Ensanada so it may be little cheaper. I then had to run the boat down the Pacific coast to our home port in the SF bay area, (another whole story). The problem with overland shipping is both the heigth 17'2'' - the flybridge, and width 15'10". You will need a lead escort in texas and the CHP in calif. and they can only run 8hrs/day and yu must be routed around all of the frw overpasses. The flybridge has to be removed to get the load under 18' to avoid overhead wires along the route. The cost to remove the flybridge is about $3k and another $3k to install not counting all the headaches. Plus the yard load & unload costs. In addition there is no guarrantee regarding road damage. The bottom line when you consider all the options it's cheaper and no hassel to ship on dockwise. It took about 26 days port to port. You float on and off just like a std docking procedure. We had no problems, it took about 2 hrs for the whole operation to load and unload. I would do it again. Mike, 53' MY "Finally"

[antiqua7hotmailcom]

I did find a carrier to transport across land - so far the bids have been 25K to 30K...Dockwise only picks up in Ft Lauderdale...