Delivery captain and crew rates?

[Dockhead]

Real full-time delivery captains often have to work with owners looking for any excuse not to pay, and often have to work with boats which haven't been out of the harbor for years and are in terrible condition. They often spend more time fixing the boat and getting it into some kind of sailable (I won't say "seaworthy") condition, or fixing breakdowns, than they spend sailing. The ones I know travel with large tool bags.


It's not a job I would be interested in, not for $500-600 a day.


If you get to pick and choose, work with reasonable people, boats in reasonable condition, and have time for it, could be OK work. I would take a good engineer with me as crew if I were doing it.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Real full-time delivery captains often have to work with owners looking for any excuse not to pay, and often have to work with boats which haven't been out of the harbor for years and are in terrible condition. They often spend more time fixing the boat and getting it into some kind of sailable (I won't say "seaworthy") condition, or fixing breakdowns, than they spend sailing. The ones I know travel with large tool bags.


It's not a job I would be interested in, not for $500-600 a day.


If you get to pick and choose, work with reasonable people, boats in reasonable condition, and have time for it, could be OK work. I would take a good engineer with me as crew if I were doing it.

We have a few rules...

We get paid our estimated fee and all expenses before we leave home.

We get a paid day to go over the boat and do a short sea trial before final acceptance of the vessel (we've spent many days in some nice hotels while getting paid) unless we were the ones who did the survey.

While we will do some maintenence underway (oil changes, flushing hydraulics etc.) we do not make repairs before we leave the dock and charge half day rate if the boat does not move due to weather or repair.

All alcohol must be removed from the boat before we take over.

We do not deliver sailboats.

We do not take owners onboard (learned that the hardway with my first two deliveries). If we need other crew, they are our choice.

We are most often paid with large amounts of cash.

We have some fun stories and two unbelievable ones involving someone you've all heard of but we have signed NDA's

We've hung around Lauderdale for a week in very nice hotel while an owner worked out issues with the deal, We once had to take a cruise ship to the pick up location due to some badly messed up travel arrangements. On one occasion we refused the vessel and walked away with full pay.

I once had to get a special Transport Canada endorsement on my ticket for an amphibian.

For many years we delivered a Fleming 55 a couple of times a year where the owner sent his private plane to pick us up then fly us home after delivery.

We have not done a delivery for about three years now (gettin' old) but we had a blast over 30 years and don't regret a thing

I'm sure MVWEEBLES also has a few stories to tell.

[jordanbettis]

Well remind me not to hire you but I guess that's not a possibility since you won't do sailboats.

[jordanbettis]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's really harsh.

The guy is just checking his understanding of the market level before making his proposal. That's a normal professional thing to do.

And it is absolutely wrong to calculate a "wage" by projecting a daily or hourly rate over a year. It doesn't work like that.

Last time I worked for clients on an hourly basis -- maybe 30 years ago -- I took $800/hour, which no one complained about. Does that mean I was earning $1.6 million a year? Hell no. Not every day is billable. Not every working hour is billable. And there are lots of costs. It's not a "wage".

Whether $450 is the right number depends on the MARKET. What a willing seller and willing buyer agree on. It's an objective question, not a question of what seems cheap or expensive to you or me.

A little research turns up this:

Low end / small or easy run: $325–$400/day
Typical, experienced, USCG-licensed, coastal/offshore: $400–$600/day. This is where most East Coast delivery folks seem to sit now
High end (long offshore, complex systems, tight schedule, bigger >60 ft): $600–$800+/day.

That puts the OP's idea about price at the low end of the middle range of going rates.

In my opinion it's a modest level for someone I know is highly experienced. I would not expect to pay less if I ever had anyone move my boat for me.

Yeah Rigamarole's math is bonkers. If you want to hire people for short term work you have to pay for their availability to come do your small job. I've worked salary, 1099 on a renewable 40hr/week contract, and short term project work, sometimes with fixed price. The "hourly cost" for my time from the first to the last arrangement was more than double.

[jeanathon]

Dockhead,
Define a "Real Delivery Captain" please. Do you think us couple a year delivery skippers don't have to vet crew, organize flights to a weather window, arrive at the boat early to provision, run systems checks and fix anything wrong with critical systems, route plan, sail the boat, and dock the boat safe and sound without anything bent? I also like to budget a day on the other end to explore, but also to clean the boat because what owner wants have to deal with the mess a crew makes after several days on a boat. i know a lot of skippers skip the last step because they are off to the next delivery on the earliest flight back. Maybe that's what defines a Real delivery captain. They are too busy to do the job well?

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

We have a few rules...

We get paid our estimated fee and all expenses before we leave home.

We get a paid day to go over the boat and do a short sea trial before final acceptance of the vessel (we've spent many days in some nice hotels while getting paid) unless we were the ones who did the survey.

While we will do some maintenence underway (oil changes, flushing hydraulics etc.) we do not make repairs before we leave the dock and charge half day rate if the boat does not move due to weather or repair.

All alcohol must be removed from the boat before we take over.

We do not deliver sailboats.

We do not take owners onboard (learned that the hardway with my first two deliveries). If we need other crew, they are our choice.

We are most often paid with large amounts of cash.

We have some fun stories and two unbelievable ones involving someone you've all heard of but we have signed NDA's

We've hung around Lauderdale for a week in very nice hotel while an owner worked out issues with the deal, We once had to take a cruise ship to the pick up location due to some badly messed up travel arrangements. On one occasion we refused the vessel and walked away with full pay.

I once had to get a special Transport Canada endorsement on my ticket for an amphibian.

For many years we delivered a Fleming 55 a couple of times a year where the owner sent his private plane to pick us up then fly us home after delivery.

We have not done a delivery for about three years now (gettin' old) but we had a blast over 30 years and don't regret a thing

I'm sure MVWEEBLES also has a few stories to tell.

Your "rules" are more or less what mine were. They sound a bit harsh laid out the way Boatpoker did but those are the guidelines every professional delivery skipper I've met has used (like Boatpoker, I didn't deliver sailboats, but I think I already said that). I too banned all alcohol from the boat during the delivery.

Only exception is I did gladly work with owners. About half my business was new Nordhavn trawlers purchased by folks who'd spent their life affording a million dollar boat. They were very interesting people who were sponges to learn. Their goal was not to displace crew but to learn.

There's a LOT more to delivering a boat than knowing how to run it. The captain is accepting responsibility for a very expensive asset plus safe passage of the self and crew. There are dozens of ways a delivery can screw up - not knowing them and anticipating them is common. Reputation is everything.

After I stopped delivering sailboats, I never had anyone question my rates, which were fairly high for the time. I was easy to do business with - no surprises. It was my fulltime job. Their boat was turned over in excellent condition with a multi-page write up of recommendations including what RPM the boat liked to run. Like Boatpoker, oil was often changed (I delivered new boats with OEM requirements to change our break-in oil) so I'd coordinate with OEMs for all sorts of equipment.

Delivering a boat looks easy, and if sorta is after you get the hang of it. But there is so much more to it than threads like this lead to believe.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

That is correct. I've been blessed with a job where I can rest my head on my own pillow at the end of the day. I am doing a one-off delivery and am out of the loop regarding rates. I generally do about one delivery a year.

The rates you're getting in this thread - $500-$600/day for skipper - are not commensurate with your experience. You'll need to "buy" business because there are much more experienced slippers out there doing it for what you're asking...and you have almost no delivery experience.

This will sound harsh, but why would someone hire you if you're only delivering once a year? The business is thick with bad outcomes because the skipper didn't know what he didn't know because he had lots of sailing experience but little delivery experience.

What's your plan if your "real job" gets in the way of the delivery? "Gee.... Sorry, but I had to leave your boat in XXXX because I gotta be at work on Monday.... Good luck!"

[Island Time O25]

I may be off the common theme but I look at the whole concept philosophically. If the owner doesn't have time, experience, inclination etc (fill in the very valid reason as appropriate) to move the boat himself - perhaps he or she has no business of owning or even purchasing that boat. To me it's like hiring someone to have sex with one's wife because one does not have time, experience, inclination, etc to do it himself.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

I may be off the common theme but I look at the whole concept philosophically. If the owner doesn't have time, experience, inclination etc (fill in the very valid reason as appropriate) to move the boat himself - perhaps he or she has no business of owning or even purchasing that boat. To me it's like hiring someone to have sex with one's wife because one does not have time, experience, inclination, etc to do it himself.

^^^^^^^ A good example of why my experience was sailors were a dead end for my delivery business. Not yet didn't need their boat moved, but they took it personally.

[jeanathon]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

I may be off the common theme but I look at the whole concept philosophically. If the owner doesn't have time, experience, inclination etc (fill in the very valid reason as appropriate) to move the boat himself - perhaps he or she has no business of owning or even purchasing that boat. To me it's like hiring someone to have sex with one's wife because one does not have time, experience, inclination, etc to do it himself.

HaHa. What if the owner just chooses to make love to his wife instead of move his boat because he hasn't time to do both? Or simply breaks an arm, and can't be onboard during a necessary move? Should you not purchase a boat because you might in the future get sick or hurt?

[Casablanca1942]

When I bought my boat I also arranged for delivery. Delivery was a side deal to the purchase. When I made my delivery offer (as part of the purchase offer) I thought I was overpaying because the broker acted very excited about it. The owner accepted the deal and delivered the boat with a staff member from the broker's office as crew.

I offered $500 day plus expenses (including transportation) for a minimum of x days. More if there were verifiable weather delays, etc. I took possession after delivery, which was important as there was some damage enroute which the owner rectified.

I would have liked to have had a standard contract in the industry. I could find none, so I made my own. The owner agreed to the terms, perhaps I was being overly generous.

I paid a cash deposit. On delivery the payment was a combination of cash and check. I also had receipts for expenses incurred. No receipt necessary if the expense was less than $50.

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by jeanathon

HaHa. What if the owner just chooses to make love to his wife instead of move his boat because he hasn't time to do both? Or simply breaks an arm, and can't be onboard during a necessary move? Should you not purchase a boat because you might in the future get sick or hurt?

IMO there is a world of difference between unexpected medical setbacks requiring assistance of hired delivery captain/crew and pre-planned use of one from the get go.

Also IMO there is a world of difference between psychology of a 40ft 70-80s sailboat owner and an owner of brand new Nordhavn 57 who most likely will use the boat both as a tax write off and income generating charter cow or some such. Kind of like the difference between a loving dotting husband and a pimp.