Shipping a big boat

j98052

Active Member
Jul 17, 2015
296
Anacortes, WA
Boat Info
2010 Sedan Bridge 520
Engines
Cummins QSM11
We are looking to upgrade to a larger boat, in the 50' range, with a fly bridge. Problem is, there are very few on the west coast (just 2 in fact), compared to many on the east coast and lakes.

Our broker is telling us that we should only consider boats on the coast, that can be moved by container ship, and that shipping via truck is a bad idea - that the fly bridge would have to be removed (so the truck can clear overpasses) and many times the boat isn't the same after such a journey. Obviously some boats must be moved by trucks -- how else would they get to lakes???

I'd like to hear about experiences moving larger boats, particularly across country.
 
j98052,
You found one person who's been there, done that and can answer some of your questions. We were in EXACTLY where you are when .we were looking to upsize. The type of boat we wanted (50-55' Sea Ray fly bridge) could be found on the west coast, but they were salt water boats, most had Detroit Diesels and were expensive as hell. I found our boat in the Detroit area. Over the space of 4 months of negotiations, two flights to DTW to sea trial it and two surveys we bought her. I found a shipper, had her shipped to Portland, OR for re-commissioning and installation of some extra equipment.

After all was said and done, and after paying freight for the new boat to get here and my trade in (330 Sundancer) to get back to Detroit, I figure I saved somewhere around $75K over buying a west coast boat, and our boat had Cat diesels.

I can give you a LOT of tips on how to save time, money, frustration, etc. Just give me a PM or ask away on here and I'll answer your questions.

Mike
 
We are looking to upgrade to a larger boat, in the 50' range, with a fly bridge. Problem is, there are very few on the west coast (just 2 in fact), compared to many on the east coast and lakes.

Our broker is telling us that we should only consider boats on the coast, that can be moved by container ship, and that shipping via truck is a bad idea - that the fly bridge would have to be removed (so the truck can clear overpasses) and many times the boat isn't the same after such a journey. Obviously some boats must be moved by trucks -- how else would they get to lakes???

I'd like to hear about experiences moving larger boats, particularly across country.

Seems to me that you need another broker... Many of the brokers we have locally are just sales folks with minimal boat expertise -- more focused on the sales commission. You need a broker that can contribute more or eliminate the broker & do it yourself.

Every large boat on an inland lake was shipped by truck. Many of these boats are designed with shipping splits where the manufacture plans for disassembly for shipment. Some marine trucking companies will provide full service derig & rerig, just ask. Otherwise, work with an experienced service yard on each end. It's not cheap but it's a fairly simple process.

I bought my boat in Lake Powell, AZ and brought cross country to Lake Lanier, GA. Contracted with local yard for haul out and disassembly. Hired hauler separately San Diego Boat Movers (got 25% discount for allowing them to coordinate to get a back haul). Contracted with local yard to offload, re-rig and to fix everything on my punch list.

It's basic project management, broken down into manageable pieces. The difficulty is in the coordination as nothing happens in the time line initially presented. Therefore plan accordingly, I added 50% additional time to every portion of the schedule given by a contractor.
 
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j98052,
You found one person who's been there, done that and can answer some of your questions. We were in EXACTLY where you are when .we were looking to upsize. The type of boat we wanted (50-55' Sea Ray fly bridge) could be found on the west coast, but they were salt water boats, most had Detroit Diesels and were expensive as hell. I found our boat in the Detroit area. Over the space of 4 months of negotiations, two flights to DTW to sea trial it and two surveys we bought her. I found a shipper, had her shipped to Portland, OR for re-commissioning and installation of some extra equipment.

After all was said and done, and after paying freight for the new boat to get here and my trade in (330 Sundancer) to get back to Detroit, I figure I saved somewhere around $75K over buying a west coast boat, and our boat had Cat diesels.

I can give you a LOT of tips on how to save time, money, frustration, etc. Just give me a PM or ask away on here and I'll answer your questions.

Mike


Mike, I know you have nothing but time on your hands:grin:

Any possibility of putting this process and the pitfalls of this into some Cliff Notes like thing under the 'Tech Articles / Tutorials section'?
I could end up doing the same thing a few years down the road and would love to know about the process before hand......

-Mike
 
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Not exactly your question, but related.

We are shopping for our next boat for use on the East Coast. I got the wild idea about considering boats on the West coast - since that would increase the size of the market pool.

Granted Mike had a positive experience with removing the fly bridge, I choose not to. Looked into options for shipping on the water.

West Coast to East coast, carried on a larger ship - around 60K. That is a ball part number, not a fine tuned quote for a 60' boat. I doubt it opens up the west coast market for us, given the hassles and the need to buy the boat 60K less.

One note when shipping via water. There is a law (I think it maybe called the Jones Act) which prohibits the shipping from one United States port to another US port direct. So the west coast boat would have to be loaded on the ship in either Vancouver or Baja Mexico, not a west coast US city. For my discussion purposes we assumed the destination would be Fort Lauderdale.

Just some incremental information,

Mark
 
For those of us in the Pac NW - boats would ship to Vancouver. There's a route from Florida to Vancouver that they do larger boats a few times a year. Your broker should have the details. It's how brand new big Sea Rays get up here from the Florida factory.
No, it is not cheap. I seem to recall easily 30-40K assuming everything goes well.

Let's dispell a myth. Saltwater boats that are well kept in the Pac NW can easily be in better shape than anything along west or east coasts. saltwater is saltwater. And although Florida has a stronger pool to choose from, the proximity to the equator aka the sun has a far more detrimental effect than a boat that's northeast or northwest.

When you get into the Great Lakes, there are more freshwater boats, but pulling the boat over the winter on dry land has it's issues as well.


As I recall, GoFirstClass was positioned to take advantage of a heck of an economic downturn. He also wanted a boat with a specific engine package that could not be easily found on the west coast. Combine those factors, he made it work. I don't think he'd tell anyone it's easy to remove a flybridge and ship that too.

In today's dollars, you're easily looking at 30-50k in shipping costs, and could be looking upwards of 8-15k in boatyard costs for teardown, packing, and reassembly. That assumes the people on each end actually have a clue about what they are doing. You would probably want to fly out the same person who took it part, to put it back together. That's an additional cost.

I've looked at all of these options for various boats. They all became cost prohibitive very quickly. Even running a boat up the west coast from southern california will run you 15-20k when it's said and done.
 
Mike, I know you have nothing but time on your hands:grin:

Any possibility of putting this process and the pitfalls of this into some Cliff Notes like thing under the 'Tech Articles / Tutorials section'?
I could end up doing the same thing a few years down the road and would love to know about the process before hand......

-Mike

+1

Bennett
 
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As I recall, GoFirstClass was positioned to take advantage of a heck of an economic downturn. He also wanted a boat with a specific engine package that could not be easily found on the west coast. Combine those factors, he made it work. I don't think he'd tell anyone it's easy to remove a flybridge and ship that too.


He also forgot to mention that he leveraged a helpful CSR member 5 wells away from where his boat was being kept and loaded. Said helper took pics of the loading process after Mike had left town so he could verify that the status updates he was getting were true.

jeez, what does a guy have to do around here to get a little credit?? :grin:
 
Mike, I know you have nothing but time on your hands:grin:

Any possibility of putting this process and the pitfalls of this into some Cliff Notes like thing under the 'Tech Articles / Tutorials section'?
I could end up doing the same thing a few years down the road and would love to know about the process before hand......

-Mike
Mike, It's funny, but I've never looked at that "Tech Articles/Tutorials Section". When I come onto CSR I always just hit the "24 hour search" thingie and look for what's new. Yeah, I'll cobble together something and put in some of the stuff I learned along the way. Good idea!

Cougar Cruiser said:
Let's dispell a myth. Saltwater boats that are well kept in the Pac NW can easily be in better shape than anything along west or east coasts. saltwater is saltwater. And although Florida has a stronger pool to choose from, the proximity to the equator aka the sun has a far more detrimental effect than a boat that's northeast or northwest."
There is some truth to the statement about saltwater boats, but I think the operative phrase in there is "boats that are well kept". Therein lies part of the problem--many boats are not washed frequently so the damage from salt appears in the form of corrosion on most metal parts. Many of the boats we looked at around the Seattle area showed some heavy corrosion so it's obvious they were not well cared for, and those seemed to be the rule rather than the exception.
"When you get into the Great Lakes, there are more freshwater boats, but pulling the boat over the winter on dry land has it's issues as well."
That's true, but with Great Lakes boats what you find is a short season (Memorial Day to Labor Day) then they're hauled out and stored on the hard or, if they're kept in the water it's in a heated shed or boat house where there's no chance of freezing. As to the damage from hauling over the road in the winter, that's true but damage can be mitigated by shrink wrapping the boat.
"As I recall, GoFirstClass was positioned to take advantage of a heck of an economic downturn. He also wanted a boat with a specific engine package that could not be easily found on the west coast. Combine those factors, he made it work. I don't think he'd tell anyone it's easy to remove a flybridge and ship that too."
I was very fortunate that my buying time coincided with the downturn in the economy. I started the process in January, 2010. The unemployment rate in and around Detroit was about 35% and NOBODY was looking to buy any kind of toy--boat, rv, etc. That helped with the negotiating on the price of the boat but I doubt it had much to do with the cost of transporting the boat from Detroit to Portland.

In today's dollars, you're easily looking at 30-50k in shipping costs, and could be looking upwards of 8-15k in boatyard costs for teardown, packing, and reassembly. That assumes the people on each end actually have a clue about what they are doing. You would probably want to fly out the same person who took it part, to put it back together. That's an additional cost."
I think you might be a bit on the high side with your estimates of shipping cost. It cost me $20K to get my boat from Detroit to Portland and $6K to get my 330 Sundancer back to Detroit. I doubt those costs would have gone up by more than a few percent per year.



As to the cost of teardown, that was included in the price I negotiated with the selling broker. Now, on a side note about that. The selling broker was a sleazeball. I didn't trust him any further than I could throw the boat I was buying. I didn't trust him to do the tear down because he would have just gone in and started cutting wires to save himself time. They also wanted to pick the fly bridge off by putting the forks of a fork lift beneath the fiberglass fly bridge and lifting. That would have likely cracked the fiberglass and they wouldn't have repaired the damage.

The selling broker had this boat in his inventory for over a year. He basically was selling it to me and not making anything but was getting it out of his inventory. Any costs he incurred in the tear down and/or shipping would have been money out of his pocket. Sleazeball that he was I just had no faith in his desire to do a good job.

As part of the price I negotiated with the yard in Portland to do the reassembly, I had them fly their technician back to Detroit to do the teardown. I paid for his airfare, hotel, per diem for meals and a rental car. That was undoubtedly the smartest thing I did in the whole process. He marked every wire before he cut it, marking it on both sides of the cut and when it came to lifting the fly bridge off the boat he showed them how to do it with lifting straps and the fork lift. The whole tear down went well and because he'd done the disassembly, the reassembly went smoothly as well.

As to removing the fly bridge, done properly it was not a difficult job, just time consuming. It had to be shipped on a separate trailer on a cradle they had to build to fit the fly bridge (by itself it's 12' wide x 24' long) pulled by its own truck and they had to get separate permits for that load.
 
For the model we are looking for, there are 2 on the west coast compared 20+ on the east coast, and they are both more expensive than the average price of the east coast boats. We have ruled one of them out because it has considerable mold in the below deck compartments.
 
Mike, It's funny, but I've never looked at that "Tech Articles/Tutorials Section". When I come onto CSR I always just hit the "24 hour search" thingie and look for what's new. Yeah, I'll cobble together something and put in some of the stuff I learned along the way. Good idea!

And that ladies and gentlemen, that is why this site is second to none.
Thanks Mike
 
For the model we are looking for, there are 2 on the west coast compared 20+ on the east coast, and they are both more expensive than the average price of the east coast boats. We have ruled one of them out because it has considerable mold in the below deck compartments.

What model are you looking at if you don't mind sharing?
 


He also forgot to mention that he leveraged a helpful CSR member 5 wells away from where his boat was being kept and loaded. Said helper took pics of the loading process after Mike had left town so he could verify that the status updates he was getting were true.

jeez, what does a guy have to do around here to get a little credit?? :grin:
Dang Roller, you're right. I'd forgotten all about that. Its amazing what time and a feeble memory do to things that should have been remembered.
 
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There is much to be said about shipping via container ship; it's routine.
The wiring between the hull/cabin to the bridge on the later DB's is nothing short of massive and much of that wiring is not standard electrical but rather data systems. The top (above the bridge) on my 52 is connectorized and can be removed but, still, not incidental. To pull the "bridge", as you state, from the boat is major surgery and I would doubt the boat would ever be the same. I simply have no earthly idea how one would pull back all of the wiring then remove the fasteners and break the adhesive bonds that hold the bridge assembly; It's simply destructive and unreasonable. I am sure any reputable transport company that specializes in yacht transport can move the boat over the road with the bridge intact and only the top removed.
 
My 2007 44DB was moved from Pensacola Beach, FL to Lake Lanier, Ga. The arch and associated electronics, all of the bridge seating, compass, all of the helm electronics, and the Venturi windshield were all removed to get the height of the boat down to about 14’10”. I had an ex Marine Max shop employee dismantle is as he had put many of them together from the factory. Every wire numbered and taped. F624FB59-C45C-4771-A6A9-A34BDF2F5ACC.jpeg 6FCFA30B-50C7-483B-9CED-CF188F630EF5.jpeg Everything has worked 100%, except one wire was hooked up wrong to light up the gauges. Swapped it and done!
 
There is much to be said about shipping via container ship; it's routine.
The wiring between the hull/cabin to the bridge on the later DB's is nothing short of massive and much of that wiring is not standard electrical but rather data systems. The top (above the bridge) on my 52 is connectorized and can be removed but, still, not incidental. To pull the "bridge", as you state, from the boat is major surgery and I would doubt the boat would ever be the same. I simply have no earthly idea how one would pull back all of the wiring then remove the fasteners and break the adhesive bonds that hold the bridge assembly; It's simply destructive and unreasonable. I am sure any reputable transport company that specializes in yacht transport can move the boat over the road with the bridge intact and only the top removed.
This thread is like a look into the past. It hasn't been that long, but it's still behind us.

ttmott, I would beg to differ with your comments about the boat never being the same. It's been 8 years since my boat was disassembled, trucked across the country then reassembled. If one was not aware of what had been done there would be no clue, no evidence of what happened.

I also would question your comment about a reputable company being able to transport the boat without removing the entire bridge.

C'mon man, it's just too danged tall. I don't recall the height measurement once the bridge was removed and the boat was on the trailer, but IIRC it was over 13' high.

Here's a few shots of what that looked like....
Getting the spacing on the forks correct before actually starting the work.
P5150919.jpg

P5150922.jpg

Here they have picked the bridge up a few inches and the technician is checking to make sure every wire is cut and there's nothing left to disassemble before they picked up the bridge.
P5150925.jpg

This is where it got REAL scary for me.
P5150927.jpg

Yikes. Pleeeeeaaaase don't drop that. In this shot you can see the flybridge seating and the console that houses the sink and freezer.
P5150929.jpg

Topless. If you look at the guy standing next to the boat (he's the trucker) you can get an estimate how tall the load is. He's a bit under 6'.
P5150931.jpg

Here's a shot of the cradle they used to haul the fly bridge. This one had been used to haul a smaller bridge from another load. It had to be rebuilt to handle the width of the bridge (12') and also the length (24'). By the time they were done rebuilding it I think it would have been cheaper for them to just build a new cradle. The guy in the photo is the tech from the yard in Portland where they were putting the boat back together. He supervised the entire process and did a great job.
P5150930.jpg
 
3 years ago when we decided to make the move from Sacramento, CA to Covington, LA (New Orleans area) we explored moving our 52" KhaShing CPMY. There were 3 ways to move it: over the road but, this was not an option as the boat was just too tall even with the bridge removed plus it weighed 48,000 lbs.; on it's own bottom but while that would have been a great trip we just didn't have the time to make the trip or money to pay a delivery captain; put it on a ship and bring it around but as was stated we could not ship from San Francisco to New Orleans, it would have had to be off loaded in the Bahamas or some other Caribbean country. And the cheapest cost for any of these methods was $26,000. A bit much for a 30 year old boat worth maybe $125,000.

After careful consideration we decided to sell the boat in California and once here buy another. We are only 11 driving hours to Tampa Bay and just a few more hours to ports south and all of the SE United States boat inventory. Mike, the moved worked for you as all the stars aligned....mostly by your intelligent logic and thoughtful project management. But I don't think all of these types of moves work out. I was a Project/Program Manager by profession and I don't think I would tackle this. Sea Rays are not the only boat brand available. I think I might broaden my search parameters before I would move a boat the size we're discussing, across the country. Just my 2 cents worth....
Shawn
 
Mike, the moved worked for you as all the stars aligned....mostly by your intelligent logic and thoughtful project management. But I don't think all of these types of moves work out. I was a Project/Program Manager by profession and I don't think I would tackle this. Sea Rays are not the only boat brand available. I think I might broaden my search parameters before I would move a boat the size we're discussing, across the country. Just my 2 cents worth....
Shawn
Shawn, I appreciate your comments. I think part of the reason it worked for me is that I'm OC about things like this, very detail oriented, and very anal. Read that as VERY ANAL.

At times I felt like I was herding cats. I'm also lucky that I had a job that allowed me to spend an hour or so a day on the phone keeping track of all the details and keeping things and people moving in the same direction.

There were a few hiccups along the way, most of them where the load broker wanted me to send him more money for one thing or another, but I kept referring back to our written contract wherein he agreed to move THAT SPECIFIC boat from the Detroit area to Portland, OR for a specific amount of money. The fact that he lost sight of some things that ended up costing him thousands of dollars was not my fault and I kept reminding him of that.

All's well that ends well.
 
Impressive Gofirstclass - When we were installing a new NEMA network from the engine room to the bridge we removed many of the access panels. When looking into these areas the bridge mating seam can be seen. On my 06 52DB the bridge assembly appears to be bonded and bedded with adhesive, a lot of adhesive. I really believe should one want to ship a boat like mine it would have to be with the bridge intact and a permitted route like other over-height transports are done.
It would be great if our good Capt. would weigh in.....
 

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