Ship by Truck???

Does anyone know if a 40' Mainship Expedition can be shipped cross country by truck?

Whats the beam? I would believe that it could be shipped....maybe not economically, but it could be done. Fly bridge removal seems to be a cost concern. Removal by folks who aren't going to do the re-install is usually a problem. They tend to cut wires and take short cuts.

Beam is 14' 2".

Beam is not usually the critical measurement. It's the height of the boat on the trailer. If the boat is too high they're simply remove the flybridge or whatever needs to be removed to get it down to a legal height.

I had my 550 Sedan Bridge shipped from Detroit to Portland, OR. They selling yard did the removal and built a cradle for the flybridge to ride on.

One of the smartest things I did during the whole buying process was have a technician from the Portland boat yard fly back to Detroit to do the tear down. He very carefully marked every wire before he cut it because he knew he'd be the one putting it back together. It was definitely worth what it cost for his airfare/hotel/rental car to make sure the job was done correctly.

Thanks for the reply. That's a good idea.

I shipped a 390 from MD to Pittsburgh last year. The flybridge was removed. Fortunately the boatyard in MD was a Mainship (Lippincott Marine) dealer and experienced in prepping boats for shipment. It went well.


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2001 Mainship 390

Dufy and Vulcan, I guess it comes down to how much faith you put in the yard that is prepping the boat for delivery. I had almost ZERO faith in the selling brokerage to do anything but snip all the wires as fast as they could. They were pi$$ed at me because of the price I bought the boat for and would have done just about anything to screw me on the delivery.

I had done some research on how long they had owned the boat after they bought it at a repo auction. I used that to negotiate for what I felt was a VERY good deal. They didn't like it but had their backs up against a wall and just about had to do it at my price.

BTW, I wrote two rather lengthy threads on another forum about negotiating for the purchase of your boat and negotiating for the interest rate on your loan.

I learned the hard way that it's not polite to mention another forum on here or to direct members away from this forum. By way of an FYI, those two threads have been on that forum as "sticky threads" since 2003. Since that time they've had just shy of 128,000 views!! That is far and away a record for that forum.

GFC said:

BTW, I wrote two rather lengthy threads on another forum about negotiating for the purchase of your boat and negotiating for the interest rate on your loan.

I learned the hard way that it's not polite to mention another forum on here or to direct members away from this forum. By way of an FYI, those two threads have been on that forum as "sticky threads" since 2003. Since that time they've had just shy of 128,000 views!! That is far and away a record for that forum.

Click to expand...

might get even more copy and paste into a new thread here

GFC said:

I learned the hard way that it's not polite to mention another forum on here or to direct members away from this forum.

Click to expand...

I'm calling BS Mike. I dare you to back up that statement or retract it. Since when have we ever discouraged posting a link???

I don't care where it directs members so long as it's reasonably on topic and not some porno or spam site.

I agree CP. Trawler Forum is pretty rare in that they do generally allow on-topic links to other sites and other forums - which I've always appreciated because that's often very useful and helpful in discussions. I'm a member of Yacht Forums for example and they have a severe policy against any whisper of other boating forums and will even yank your membership if you name an alternative forum. No such silliness on TF, enjoy it a lot more.

OK, that was my bad. It happened within the past week when a poster was asking questions about a specific brand of boat. I suggested he visit a forum that was pretty specific to the brand but not sponsored by the brand.

I got spanked for it. It was my mistake that I forgot that it was on the other forum. I won't mention the other forum by name. (It was already done!)

So I apologize to those who I offended, pi$$ed off or otherwise ticked off by my comment. I really do enjoy TF more than that other forum. I visit here several times a day. The other one--maybe a couple of times a week.

I wouldn't mind copying and pasting from the thread that got all the page views if it didn't violate some policy on here. But understand that a lot of the information that's on those threads came from the interaction between the members. I could start them on here and see where they go.

What say you, moderators?

IMO, leave it rest where it lies. We enjoy the open exchange of info here on TF and what you contribute to the conversations, GFC. No need to bring other more restrictive forums into play here.

Let's just bask in the glow of what we have here.

Not sure what the problem is here. I've referred TF posters asking questions about Grand Banks boats to the Grand Banks owners forum many times, and other members have done the same with other brands from time to time. To my knowledge there have never been any reprimands from the TF site team.

We shipped our GB36 from Alameda, CA to Tacoma, WA by truck. Beam is 12 feet. We were told by the trucking firm (Associated) that the GB36 was the largest GB they could truck on the west coast without removing the flying bridge. I would imagine a larger boat of a different make would need the flying bridge removed. This can be a big job at both ends of the journey.

Associated told us that shipping a boat in the western US tends to be a little easier than in the north east of the country because the main roads and overpasses out west are generally newer with better clearances.

Our experience back in 1998 with having our boat trucked was very good. The truck required a pilot car, which was part of the total bill. We reassembled the boat ourselves in the yard in Tacoma--- putting the mast and boom back up, aerials, and venturi panels.