Moving A Sailboat From Lake To Coast..Costs?

[Stumble]

How about $10,000, something like $5,000 to shut down a local highway with all the troopers, the rest to rent a big enough boom truck to pick up the boat and lift it into deep water. I don't know much about boom trucks, but it had to hold 18,000lbs 50' out which is aparently an issue.

Without more specifics this is a pretty meaningless question. If there is a local lift it isn't so bad, or even an easy place to put a lift truck, otherwise it gets expensive fast.

A long haul truck runs about $3.00/mile, getting the boat rigged is the tricky part. For boats over 10' wide is there already a tilt trailer for it? Can you borrow one?

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by tropicalescape

If you pull and replace the mast yourself you can save 350.00..Pull up to a bridge and have someone helping ,it only takes a few minutes if you have the rigging undone before hand..Keep in mind my boat is 32 ft long and the mast is maybe 35 -40 ft long,might be more involved with a larger boat..good luck ..The boat transport company is as cheap as it gets from what I can tell(google or go to craigslist in Charlotte and look for"boat transporting" and look for "Mike" hes a good fellow and knows his business...good luck

My guess is you didn't have an insured carrier. Good luck if he gets in a crash or simply doesn't secure the boat and it falls off the trailer.

We have a 38' mast. No way we are pulling up to a bridge and lifting it off by hand. Maybe if you had half a dozen people but even then a big chance you drop the mast and it costs you a lot more than you saved. Not to mention if the police happen by they will probably send you packing.

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

My guess is you didn't have an insured carrier. Good luck if he gets in a crash or simply doesn't secure the boat and it falls off the trailer.

We have a 38' mast. No way we are pulling up to a bridge and lifting it off by hand. Maybe if you had half a dozen people but even then a big chance you drop the mast and it costs you a lot more than you saved. Not to mention if the police happen by they will probably send you packing.

If you are interested in getting a boat hauled,Mike can be found on Craigslist in Charlotte NC,look under Boats /hauling etc. He is very professional and I am certian that he has insurance and enough experiance to not forget to "strap the boat down"! Four Seasons(only travel lift on Lake Norman) and most other marinas use his services at one time or another...Anyone hauling a 30 ft plus boat on the interstate system without insurance is a fool and will not be seen but a few times before he is neck deep in litagation and traffic court..I know of at least two bridges on the lake that one could use to pull a mast and not worry about police intervention(other than helping with the traffic control,not every police officer is rigid and not able to "think out of the box")What is worse : A cop that goes by the book and is overzelious(stereotype) or a person that thinks every cop is "overzelious and goes by the book"?

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by tropicalescape

If you are interested in getting a boat hauled,Mike can be found on Craigslist in Charlotte NC,look under Boats /hauling etc. He is very professional and I am certian that he has insurance and enough experiance to not forget to "strap the boat down"! Four Seasons(only travel lift on Lake Norman) and most other marinas use his services at one time or another...Anyone hauling a 30 ft plus boat on the interstate system without insurance is a fool and will not be seen but a few times before he is neck deep in litagation and traffic court..I know of at least two bridges on the lake that one could use to pull a mast and not worry about police intervention(other than helping with the traffic control,not every police officer is rigid and not able to "think out of the box")

Good luck with your bridge idea.

I used to work for a state DOT and did oversize loads as small part of my job. If it came to our attention you would be sent packing. All the smaller local road agencies would have a similar approach. Lot's of liability issues. Our lawyers would certainly tell us NO.

And we often got calls from the police if they had an oversize load that didn't have the proper permit or deviated from the permit.

[CruisingCouple]

Having the mast unstepped and stepped is no big deal if the marina has a crane arm on their travel lift. I just hauled our Hunter Legend 37 300 miles home to my shop to work on it for the winter (we live in the frozen north). I hauled it myself with my semi tractor and lowboy. I haul heavy equipment all the time and have standing over-width, over-height and over-weight permits for 5 states. I have to call into DOT with load dimensions and weight and it usually takes 3-4 hours to get my routing and hours that I can run.

For our boat the marina charged $175 for the crane to unstep the mast. I disconnected all the rigging myself. We simply picked the boat off the cradle, set the cradle on the lowboy and chained it down, backed the lowboy under the travel lift and set her back on her cradle. Then I strapped the boat down. Height was legal, width was 13' and my routing was such that I didn't need pilot car(s).

Whether or not you need pilot car(s) depends on the routing. On state highways you can go up to 15' without a pilot car. But on county and town roads you can't. If the load is over-height, requiring special routing and/or lifting of overhead powerlines the sky is the limit on what it costs to move the load.

You will not get a definite price from anybody until you specify where you are moving the boat from and to and then get a quote from a trucker that does over-size loads from those two points. And I'll warn you right up front that those of us who move over-sized loads don't come cheap.

[Nicholson58]

We've done this. but much larger boat.

Do all possible work yourself. This is the most expensive part of this job.
Hired labor will rob you. If you do hire labor you must be there to supervise or be prepared for surprises.
Make sure you know the fees at the marinas on each end. They will rob you.
If you are going marina to marina make sure the travel lifts can handle you.
If it is going into storage on the hard get quotes on the rates ahead. This may influence your destination too.
If there is no travel lift you will hire a rigger to lift the boat. this is very expensive.
If the hauler has a hydraulic trailer that can handle your vessel he can pick it up from the hard and deliver it anywhere.
Get solid quotes for the hauling. Use only dedicated yacht haulers. Get references. call them. Make sure they are insured.
All haulers have accomodation on their trailers for masts. Ours had J-Hooks on the side. You should not need to build wood davit for on-deck hauling.
The fees are greatly influenced by the weight, beam, length height. If you exceed the highway limit the hauler may be required to have one or two escorts and/or follow a specially mapped rout at designated hours. Probably not such a big deal on a short haul. We went Florida to Michigan; 16 beam, 15'-7" bridge clearance, 36 tons.

[lifeofreilly57]

The previous advice to check with the marinas at either end was sound.
In looking to have my new project hauled to my property I thought it would be cheaper to haul it closer to my home to reduce the shipping costs but was quite wrong. The marinas in Massachusetts were much higher in cost for all the services including hauling, stepping the mast and one weeks storage on the hard to remove stanchions, dorades and other deck mounted hardware to keep the height legal.
The difference was more than the extra cost for extra mileage hauling it from a marina in Narraganset bay, where there is more competition and many more marinas, some DIY, some full service.
Doing your homework and getting the price on all those little things makes a huge difference in cost, those little things added up to thousands very quickly.
Simply picking a different marina in a slightly different location can save you thousands.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by CruisingCouple

Having the mast unstepped and stepped is no big deal if the marina has a crane arm on their travel lift. I just hauled our Hunter Legend 37 300 miles home to my shop to work on it for the winter (we live in the frozen north). I hauled it myself with my semi tractor and lowboy. I haul heavy equipment all the time and have standing over-width, over-height and over-weight permits for 5 states. I have to call into DOT with load dimensions and weight and it usually takes 3-4 hours to get my routing and hours that I can run.

For our boat the marina charged $175 for the crane to unstep the mast. I disconnected all the rigging myself. We simply picked the boat off the cradle, set the cradle on the lowboy and chained it down, backed the lowboy under the travel lift and set her back on her cradle. Then I strapped the boat down. Height was legal, width was 13' and my routing was such that I didn't need pilot car(s).

Whether or not you need pilot car(s) depends on the routing. On state highways you can go up to 15' without a pilot car. But on county and town roads you can't. If the load is over-height, requiring special routing and/or lifting of overhead powerlines the sky is the limit on what it costs to move the load.

You will not get a definite price from anybody until you specify where you are moving the boat from and to and then get a quote from a trucker that does over-size loads from those two points. And I'll warn you right up front that those of us who move over-sized loads don't come cheap.

Re: Your newness to CF...

Your 11th post went from.... "this is who we are, and what we're doing..."

to....

"Giving advice in an area which you have great expertise..."

The true spirit of CF! Thank You!

[CruisingCouple]

At a landlocked site where you would have to hire a crane to get the boat off the trailer, most crane operators around here charge $800-1,000 to stick the key in the switch and $200/hr from the time they leave their yard to the time they get back to their yard. That can add up pretty fast.

As the poster a couple posts ago noted, you can get dedicated yacht movers with a 50 ton hydraulic trailer. And if I was moving our boat from a marina to a landlocked location for work and refits that's probably what I'd do to save the expense of a crane at the destination to get the boat off the trailer.

However, the facility at the destination, and whether or not you want the boat inside to work on it, makes a difference too. In our case, I have a 100 ton overhead traveling crane in my shop, so it was easy to pick the boat off the trailer and move it where ever I want it in my shop. If you take it to a shop where there is not an overhead crane in the building, then a yacht mover with a hydraulic trailer can set it anywhere and get out from under it.

If you are moving from marina to marina, and the marina's travel lift is high enough, you won't need a crane and it will be cheaper. In that case I would get a trucker with a lowboy because he will typically be cheaper than a dedicated yacht mover and have just as good of insurance.

In moving oversize loads, somebody that specializes in one type of load usually means lots of dollars because they have a big investment in specialized equipment that they have to pay for. But for truckers that do oversize loads of all types, a yacht is a "gravy job" because they're not heavy compared to a 150 ton D10 or a big end loader that could lift 4 yachts with the bucket.

That's my 2 cents.