Transporting tender cross country

The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Comodave said:
I talked to Enterprise about renting a 1 ton diesel dually with unlimited mileage for a week to bring a boat to Michigan from Texas. The cost was under $800 for the truck. Your dinghy would not need more than a 1/2 ton pickup. But you would have to do the driving.
Click to expand...


This was one of the options I was considering, and it's interesting that you found anyone willing to rent a pickup one-way. I have been unsuccessful at that. Perhaps it's a regional thing.
 
twistedtree said:
This was one of the options I was considering, and it's interesting that you found anyone willing to rent a pickup one-way. I have been unsuccessful at that. Perhaps it's a regional thing.
Click to expand...

FWIW - for another larger RIB we moved we rented a 28' truck from Penske in south Florida and drove it to NY one way. The truck was not even 1/4 full with other items but had no problems pulling the RIB/trailer approx. 1,500 miles.
We flew down and drove back as a team not stopping for very much along the way.
 
twistedtree said:
This was one of the options I was considering, and it's interesting that you found anyone willing to rent a pickup one-way. I have been unsuccessful at that. Perhaps it's a regional thing.
Click to expand...


Uhaul might be another option for 1 way pickup rental.
 
Regarding towing the trailer 3,000 miles or so, I think the reality is it depends totally on the trailer construction and size. My assumption (?) is that a trailer for small RIB is not going to have double axle and full size wheels, and is built more lightly than a trailer designed to carry a larger vessel. From the trailer breakdown problems I have seen along highways (quite a few) they are usually the result of axles and wheel bearing problems. It is my belief that your average lightweight trailer is not designed or built to travel 3,000 miles in a hurry. OTOH, some trailers clearly are built that are more fit for purpose. I guess the OP has to decide which type he has. Nothing worse than losing a wheel halfway home!!
 
Thanks to a lead from a fellow TFer, I have someone lined up to haul it. Timing is the only issue, but I think I can live with it.
 
I bet you could fit it in a moving pod. Call them and see what they charge to move a pod across country.
"Pods"
 
Small trailers are frequently used to launch the boat.


Before a long trip repacking the wheel bearings might be good PM.
 
Goldcar said:
SELL SELL SELL. Then buy a new one, It's not remotely worth the added expense.
Click to expand...


I guess you missed my previous post about this option. There is a 6+ month lead time to order a new one. I have been waiting for this one since last August. Ordering a new one just isn't an option.
 
Call Pelican Trucking in Biloxi (228) 396-8668 - he might do it or have a good idea how


20ft shipping container and put it on the train!!
 
Crate it and then it can be handled by forklift and put on any sort of trailer. The key is to just have someone build a good solid crate for it. Long haul shippers do that all the time. Not fancy, just a good bit of lumber and nails.
 
In a crate it's still going to cost $5K. Running a truck across the country is about $10 - 12K these days. You pay for the space your load takes on the truck. A 20' crate takes half the truck. I have heavy machinery moved all the time and that's the way it works.
 
Got all that Peter? Have someone build a crate, put the boat in the crate. Put the crate in a POD, then put that in a U-Haul. Put the U-Haul in a shipping container, then put the container on a train. Then sell the boat and buy a new one. Easy Peezy.
 
DDW said:
In a crate it's still going to cost $5K. Running a truck across the country is about $10 - 12K these days. You pay for the space your load takes on the truck. A 20' crate takes half the truck. I have heavy machinery moved all the time and that's the way it works.
Click to expand...

Yes, it may, but I believe it's well short of 20'.
 
For $5K to ship across the US, I would sell the current boat, order a new one and wait the 2 months. I dont know of any tender worth the shipping cost.
While waiting, you can buy a used tender to use.
 
Let's back up a second. The Rib was originally shipped in a small boat, deflated. Then it was assembled. Return it to the original state, ship, and reinflate on the west coast. AB should be able to handle that for you. We shipped Ribs to the west coast, but not in an assembled and inflated state. I had forgotten about that for a moment and they were new purchases but they were shipped from England to Florida to Washington.
 
Porgy said:
Got all that Peter? Have someone build a crate, put the boat in the crate. Put the crate in a POD, then put that in a U-Haul. Put the U-Haul in a shipping container, then put the container on a train. Then sell the boat and buy a new one. Easy Peezy.
Click to expand...




That's it! Problem solved.
 
I have two people who can take it as a partial load on a flatbed tractor trailer. DDW is correct about the makeup of the costs, and both people will do it for about $3k which is a 1/3 load. The first guy is supposed to pick it up next week, and if he fails, the other guy can pick it up about 3 weeks later.


One complication is dealing with this remotely. "Get someone to crate it" is easier said than done. I have also now found that the dealer does not have a forklift suitable to load the trailer and boat onto a flat bed. So just getting it loaded onto a truck is proving problematic and now I'm trying to deal with that - remotely. If anyone knows of a business in Stuart Florida with good forklift capability who could load the boat, let me know. If you don't have a forklift or a loading dock, you can forget truck shipping.



The backup backup plan is still to fly to FL, rent a box truck, winch the thing into the back, and drive it to Seattle. That, by far, is the most predictable and reliable outcome, and I place a high value on that with something like this. But it also takes the most of my time. This shirt show that I'm dealing with now is probably the least predictable and reliable outcome, and frankly causes me the most stress. I give this current pickup next week a 50/50 chance of happening.


I gotta say, it's a freakin' miracle that anything in this country gets where it's going, and gets there in one piece. My personal experience with truck shipping is a 100% failure rate. Never, not once, has it gone as advertised, and never has anything arrived without at least a forklift fork hole in the box or crate, and probably 50% of the time there is actual damage to the shipment contents. So I have low expectations of the boat coming through undamaged as well.



In hind sight, I probably should have tried to get out of the deal to buy the boat in Florida. But I had a deposit paid and the boat was a custom order, so cancelling would have also meant trying to get my deposit back. Plus I just don't like to back out of a deal. And the dealer said they ship boats all the time and it was no big deal. What that turned out to mean is that I would have to figure out how to ship the boat.
 
The easy way is prep the trailer with new wheel bearings, tires and brakes. If the boat is not being launched driving the 3500 miles to the northwest should not be difficult. The newer 1/2 pick-ups are getting if you can believe the adds over 20 miles per gallon. The other option is to buy a new trailer and get rid of the old at with the dealer then sell the new trailer when you get to the NW.
 
Hindsight is 20/20. You did what you thought would work at the time with the information you had available. This is a small bump in the road compared to your new Nordy... You'll make it work.
 
I understand that the boat is on a trailer, did you look at some of the car haulers. I explored this option when I was going to ship an 18 ft'r that was on a trailer from AZ to WA. it was by far the cheapest cost per mile that I found. Some of the car haulers are enclosed, just another avenue to explore.
 
Sailor of Fortune said:
Hindsight is 20/20. You did what you thought would work at the time with the information you had available. This is a small bump in the road compared to your new Nordy... You'll make it work.
Click to expand...


Very true. I was telling one of the guys working on restoring our salon that pretty soon all we'd have left of the project is a good story to tell. The dinghy will just be another side story.
 
DennisB1 said:
The easy way is prep the trailer with new wheel bearings, tires and brakes. If the boat is not being launched driving the 3500 miles to the northwest should not be difficult. The newer 1/2 pick-ups are getting if you can believe the adds over 20 miles per gallon. The other option is to buy a new trailer and get rid of the old at with the dealer then sell the new trailer when you get to the NW.
Click to expand...


This was one of the paths I've considered. Also included to make this happen are:


- Find someone to do the trailer work, including pickup and delivery of the trailer & boat. Then get them to actually do it.


- Register the trailer. Gotta have plates to pull it across the country. But I have no address in FL. I could register in MA where I reside, but that means a trip there, plus countless covid delays to get actual paperwork and plates. Just getting registered could take longer than driving across the country.


- Find a one way poickup truck rental. This has proven very difficult, i.e. impossible. Pickup rentals all seem to be local only, not one way. And if they will do a one way rental, they prohibit towing. The smallest tow vehicle I could find was a U-haul box van.

My conclusion was that there were countless things that could go wrong and cause delays. It's back to that desire for a predictable and reliable outcome, and that means fewer dependencies on other people.


I figured the driving time towing and with the boat in the back of a box truck would be about the same as pulling a trailer, but with a box truck I could eliminate all the risk associated with the trailer, it's condition, repairs, and registration. All I need is someone to rent me the truck which is pretty straight forward, and a come-along to winch the boat up the ramp. With that plan I think I could fly to FL and be back in a week with high probability.
 
Last edited:
Ka_sea_ta said:
I understand that the boat is on a trailer, did you look at some of the car haulers. I explored this option when I was going to ship an 18 ft'r that was on a trailer from AZ to WA. it was by far the cheapest cost per mile that I found. Some of the car haulers are enclosed, just another avenue to explore.
Click to expand...


Yes. I've run into this trying to move a car that doesn't run. Car haulers want nothing to do with it. And it's understandable because car haulers are drive on, drive off. The boat on trailer is rolling dead weight and needs to be winched up or fork lifted on to a trailer. That's what drives the cost up compared to shipping a car. I was originally expecting a cost of $1200 to $1500 because that's what it costs to ship a car. Unfortunately that's not the case.
 
If it is in Stuart, call the Hinckley yard there. Pretty sure they have a fork lift but for sure they have a travel lift. They were very accommodating to any request when I was there and very fair on price. They know boats and are less likely to damage it. You should be able to put it on a truck trailer with no pallet or crate, but you'd need someone familiar with boats to supervise tying it down and maybe a little prep. They prep boats for trucks all the time.

Forklift damage and trans-shipping is why you want to use LTL: the load gets put on the truck and usually stays there until it gets to the destination. If you use a common carrier (like Yellow Freight, Dominion, etc) your pallet will be trans-shipped through 5 depots, handled 5 times my numb-nuts fork lift drivers, it will have holes in it and the pallet will be broken. I used to try to ship machinery common carrier, it always arrived in some state of damage. Every time. I switched to only LTL and now only maybe 1 in 5 are damaged.
 
DDW said:
If it is in Stuart, call the Hinckley yard there. Pretty sure they have a fork lift but for sure they have a travel lift. They were very accommodating to any request when I was there and very fair on price. They know boats and are less likely to damage it. You should be able to put it on a truck trailer with no pallet or crate, but you'd need someone familiar with boats to supervise tying it down and maybe a little prep. They prep boats for trucks all the time.

Forklift damage and trans-shipping is why you want to use LTL: the load gets put on the truck and usually stays there until it gets to the destination. If you use a common carrier (like Yellow Freight, Dominion, etc) your pallet will be trans-shipped through 5 depots, handled 5 times my numb-nuts fork lift drivers, it will have holes in it and the pallet will be broken. I used to try to ship machinery common carrier, it always arrived in some state of damage. Every time. I switched to only LTL and now only maybe 1 in 5 are damaged.
Click to expand...



Thanks for the LTL vs Common Carrier tip. I’ll remember that for future shipments.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Trucking 51' Bluewater Coastal Cruiser
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
Tcheairs
T
Adopo
Lawsuit Rocks the Yacht-Sales World
2
Replies
51
Views
9K
FoxtrotCharlie
FoxtrotCharlie
K
Columbia River Boaters -Questions
Replies
14
Views
839
Bmarler
B
J
Trailerable Trawler List
2
Replies
56
Views
6K
Jbo_c
J
Pete Meisinger
Sea Ray Sundancer 250, Info, please
Replies
18
Views
2K
sunchaser
S

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom