I hauled out for some major work, summer 2019. Driscoll's boatyard in Mission Bay. I hauled out again Feb 2020 to put on the truck to move to Norfolk.
I don't know much about the yards north of
San Diego. likewise i haven't been to the yards in
Mexico. however i do know that the Mexican yards were bought out by one of the San Diego boat yards. i hear the labor isn't too different however the materials all come from San Diego at San Diego prices so that part has gotten more expensive. Military personnel aren't allowed to go into
Mexico with out some major unlikely check in the boxes, so that should tell you a lot as well.
there aren't a lot of
DIY yards in San Diego.
Marine group wont let you do DIY. That leaves you with Driscolls San Diego, Driscolls Mission Bay, Koehler craft, and nelson Beaumont. there is a newer yard south, that sounded like a true diy yard, but there's the added expense of having to truck the boat there from
marine group Chula Vista. cant remember the name, I'm sorry.
a lot of the yards have started playing games and don't do work on your boat anymore. they do
bottom paint and nothing else. they have a 3rd party contractor do any work so they can charge you laydays, and not have to worry about liability. the contractors i seen them use or experienced weren't very good and overcharge as much as possible. very frustrating. many of them will charge you double laydays for the boat and
mast. driscolls mission bay played that. they charged $175 for the boat and another $75 for the mast per day, so $250 a day. then priority is shifted to the
commercial fleet, mega yachts and expensive
racing boats, so it takes a longer to get work done.
nelson Beaumont does a lot of work for the Military, cheapest bidder. i have seen their work, and wouldn't recommend them. i have not been in their yard so i don't know if its the same people there.
the yard south, told my ex-wife he wouldn't do any work for her boat because
women should operate
boats. when i was looking and getting quotes, I got the sense that the owner was a "know more than you" type and was really put off by him. they were cheaper but the complications of having to truck the boat there was too much of a pain. not a lot of
cheap boat movers in San Diego.
I've heard good things about Koehler's Kraft however they are a small yard and hard to get in.
Marine group has 2 yards in San Diego, but will not allow you to do any work. i have seen them do good work, but they are not not the cheapest.
personally, i have seen the prices rise considerably in San Diego over the years.
haul out for a 42' is in the $1000 range with
power wash. $1500 to include
bottom paint. a lot of boaters don't get hauled out as often as they should because of the costs. my old marina you could see several nice older boats slowly degrade over time as they are priced out
if you have the option to bring it home, or truck the mast home, that is a significant cost savings and well worth it. I highly recommend doing so. at the end of the day i was highly frustrated by the whole process. very dissapointed witht he amount and quality of work i received for the
money i paid for it. i spend a little over $50k and the general attitude was it was chump change, and barely paid much focus on the boat. i felt i had to really
monitor the workers as they would grab them for other boats, really shorting my progress. i almost felt i had to log their time because i kept getting the feeling i was paying for more time than i was getting. i am pretty happy go lucky, but they had me going to their office to chew some ass a couple of times. i definitely would have chosen a different yard had i known how things would work out, however looking into things after, it didn't sound like the other yards were much different especially that time of year. cost me $16-17K just in lay days for ~ 3 months. In Norfolk it was $3000 for 3 months.