Transport Question

Anyone have a ballpark cost on moving a 50' trawler from the Washington State area around to the Gulf side of Mexico?

As deck cargo on a ship my guess would be $30,000. to the closest port.

By truck, at least $10K and if your beam is 15' or greater then about 1/3 more due to need for a chase car. Does not include removal of flybridge, building a shipping cradle, shipping it and reassembly, which can be another couple of thousand or double if it has to be shipped separately.


So figure $15-20K.


David

Some research into the current value on the boat will help you. Prices of boats in the southeast US are lower than the Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes and the Northeast. Paying a lot of money to move the boat may not be worth it.
Shipping by freighter cannot be from one US port to another US port as almost all freighters are foreign flag. It would have to shipped from British Columbia to the Gulf of Mexico. Costs run a little under $1,000 per foot for on deck cargo.

I would think you're looking closer to 35k-45kk. We looked at buying a Selene 53 (60ft LOA) in Washington and shipping it, it wasn't worth it.

You may want to consider hiring a captain to do it for you. If you have a chance to be aboard for a day of so you can have him/her show you all of the systems on the vessel if you aren't familiar with them. Consider it to be the shake down cruise and it's a good idea to have the captain aboard in case there are any equipment breakdowns/issues.

BoatCaptainsOnline.com - Boat Captains for Hire

To expand on Tucker's post. he is right you can't ship from a US port to a US port. But it is unclear from your post that that is what you want to do. If you are going from WA to the Gulf coast of Mexico, you can ship from Seattle to a Mexican port. If going to a US port, you have to ship from Vancouver. As to price, Tucker is pretty much spot on. You can contact Peters & May, they ship yacht worldwide, just google their website, and they can give you firm pricing and potential shipping schedules. Based on our experience shipping a 58' from So Fla to Seattle, something around $40-50K probably is in the ballpark. As to hiring a captain, it is a long, long trip from the PNW, through the Canal and up the Mexican coast.

This is likely to involve a rather complicated shipping path. Seven Star does use the port of Altimira which is on the East Coast of Mexico. They also ship from Vancouver. However, to my knowledge they don't have ships that go directly from Vancouver to Altimira. Most shipping is to the West Coast of Mexico or to Costa Rica or to the East Coast of the US. They may mean that the boat would start on one ship, get off loaded somewhere, and get put on another ship. Between those locations I would estimate $60,000. You can easily get a quote from Seven Star on such a shipment.

Now there are others who will ship a boat on a regular cargo run. Still you're looking for a very unusual path. The major yacht transport companies really do 80% of their shipping on 5 or 6 total routes.

Now, taking the boat by water over a period of time could be the trip of your lifetime.

Here's another idea--why not cruise it on it's own bottom down to San Diego, then have it trucked across Houston or Corpus Christi? That will cut your shipping costs and shipping time way down and you'll have the fun of cruising it down the coast.


I helped a guy take his 58' Bayliner from Seattle down to Stockton, CA a couple of years ago. It's a decent trip that we did in 9 days including 4 days spent in port due to winds. We didn't cruise at night and only had one real long day.


Here's a linky to my post about that trip....
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s36/journey-lifetime-10565.html

GFC said:

Here's another idea--why not cruise it on it's own bottom down to San Diego, then have it trucked across Houston or Corpus Christi? That will cut your shipping costs and shipping time way down and you'll have the fun of cruising it down the coast.


I helped a guy take his 58' Bayliner from Seattle down to Stockton, CA a couple of years ago. It's a decent trip that we did in 9 days including 4 days spent in port due to winds. We didn't cruise at night and only had one real long day.


Here's a linky to my post about that trip....
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s36/journey-lifetime-10565.html

Click to expand...

If you go a little farther, down to Ensenada, you can use a foreign flagged transport vessel.

Stopping in San Diego would require you to ship it by a US flagged vessel, or deliver it to some port in Mexico if you use a foreign flagged vessel.

Stu

Shipping by land, a huge part of the cost is preparation and then reassembly at the destination.

By sea, it's easy to ship from Ensenada. The only problem is that for most boat shipping you have to next to to South Florida. You can call SevenStar or others and see if they have ideas on how to get it from the west coast of Mexico to the east coast of Mexico. It's just not somewhere they ship often.

You're going to need a cradle.

We looked quickly at road transport from San Fran to BC, but our 50' was too big - even with a pole car etc.
Ended up doing it her own bottom. Made a trip of it with no regrets, though it was nowhere near the distance you are talking!

gcagle. I can't really help with cost estimates of either over the road or seagoing transport, however, I can highly recommend a very qualified Captain and Crew in the Puget sound area who could bring the boat down either thru the Panama Canal, or to San Diego area to be trucked overland from there if you'd like. They're also very qualified for training if you'd care to accompany the boat for either the entire voyage or just segments. Please let me know via pm if you'd like more info. In either case, GOOD LUCK!

All things considered, it may be easiest to keep looking

stubones99 said:

If you go a little farther, down to Ensenada, you can use a foreign flagged transport vessel.

Stopping in San Diego would require you to ship it by a US flagged vessel, or deliver it to some port in Mexico if you use a foreign flagged vessel.

Stu

Click to expand...

Stu, my suggestion was to cruise it on it's own bottom down the coast and stop at San Diego. Then you'd load it on a truck to haul it across the states to a point in Texas where she'd be launched in the gulf.

No need for any ship board transport and no problems with foreign flagged vessels.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
nmuir, why was it too big? I had my 58' boat shipped from Detroit to Portland, OR.

"nmuir, why was it too big? I had my 58' boat shipped from Detroit to Portland, OR."


I am curious how much it cost from Detroit to Portland and who was the trucker that handled the job? Would you recommend them?


Thank you

smitty477 said:

"nmuir, why was it too big? I had my 58' boat shipped from Detroit to Portland, OR."


I am curious how much it cost from Detroit to Portland and who was the trucker that handled the job? Would you recommend them?


Thank you

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That had to be an 18 foot beam........

"That had to be an 18 foot beam"


Actually I believe it to be 15' 11" as we cruise with one like that occasionally.

It cost about $28k in 2011 moving from China to Oakland, California.

smitty477 said:

"That had to be an 18 foot beam"


Actually I believe it to be 15' 11" as we cruise with one like that occasionally.

Click to expand...

Still that's two whole lanes....

8'6" is max....

10'6" is "oversize"

anything over is wide and requires a lot of stuff......

16' is monstrous.....

28 thousand from fort laud florida to austrailia

markpierce said:

It cost about $28k in 2011 moving from China to Oakland, California.

Click to expand...

You can double that for 50'. Now I am guessing they didn't ship it with a yacht transport company? Most builders have their own arrangements. Plus regular service from China. Not regular service from the West Coast to the East Coast of Mexico.

Now, the OP has never told us what the boat is. There are huge differences in various 50' "trawlers". Flybridge is a huge factor as is beam.

BandB said:

... Now I am guessing they didn't ship it with a yacht transport company? Most builders have their own arrangements. ...

Click to expand...

No, the boat was first hauled by a local transport to a major port and then transported by container ship.

smitty477 said:

"nmuir, why was it too big? I had my 58' boat shipped from Detroit to Portland, OR."

I am curious how much it cost from Detroit to Portland and who was the trucker that handled the job? Would you recommend them?

Thank you

Click to expand...

When I bought my boat and had it moved there were actually two moves involved. First was my new 550 from a marina on Lake St. Clair to a marina in Portland, OR. The second move was my trade (a 330 Sundancer) from Pasco, WA back to Lake St. Clair.

Total bill for both moves was $20K.

I went through a load broker in FL and would not recommend him. When I talked with him several times before hiring him he said he'd shipped 550's several times, was familiar with what they needed as far as permits, etc.

When push came to shove (AFTER we had agreed on a price and AFTER we had signed contracts for both boats to be moved) he realized a couple of things:
1. The fly bridge was too large (12'x24') to be shipped on the same trailer as the hull. This required that he buy a trailer, build a cradle for the fly bridge and have a second truck make that haul. It also required separate pilot cars for the fly bridge.
2. He based his estimate on the cost of the permits based on the dry weight of the 550. It had some fuel and a small amount of water in it but that was enough to take it from a (IIRC) Max Load to a Super Max Load. He found that out when the trucker stopped at the first weigh station before even leaving Michigan. That little mistake on his part cost him about $3,000 more for all the permits than he'd budgeted. He tried to pass that cost on to me but I reminded him that we had signed contracts.

The trucker himself "Jimmy", owner of Wave Maker Trucking did a good job. The boat sustained a minor amount of damage on the way west but his insurance covered all of it. If you Google Wave Maker Trucking LLC you'll find numerous reference to him.

If I were to ship a boat again I'd use him but I'd deal directly with him.

I just got a quote from associated boat transport for $25K to truck my boat from Anacortes to Houston.

I remember getting a quote from one of thre marine outfits for something in the $40K range a couple of years ago from Victoria BC to Port Everglades FL.

That was for a Bayliner 4788, 53' OAL 15' beam. Quote was not including prep which is easy on the 4788 since it was designed to be truckable.

Thank you very much Mike and Kevin.


That may come in handy in my future.

Many thanks

Thanks to everyone for the replies. I'm going to go with the "keep looking" advice on this one.

Long distance transport , world wide can be very cheap.

All the boat has to do is fit INSIDE a std or over sized container.

The numbers are not that bad for a boat that would basically be an along shore cruiser.

39.5LOA , 7.5 max beam and about 9 ft keel to top.

A folding or lowering PH would be needed.

I have long lusted for an Atkin sea skiff type hull with a box keel and reverse dead rise hull.

At speeds o SL 2.5 or less it would be cheap to keep, and the ability to take the ground would be a delight in the worlds crowded harbors.

In aluminum about $100K should produce a great boat with a modest old style (Paint and wood trim) interior , and modest living space , basically for 2 but for 4 , for a while.

This would be for a managed build , not a necessarily a yard build,

The Seabright series were both seaworthy and sea kindly , so offshore voyages could be contemplated , tho with cheap box transport , why bother ?