Shipping a sailboat from New England to BVI’s

[Snore]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

Contact Snore or Auspicious on this Forum. They're both very experienced, busy delivery captains. One or the other of them should be able to deliver her for you.

Just a curiosity question: Do you have a place arranged to keep her in the BVIs?

Good luck,
LittleWing

@LittleWing -Thanks for the kind words. @CaptainDenver - Auspicious’s planning number is a good ballpark for planning. When you are ready, I too would welcome the opportunity to bid. A link to my website is on my profile page.

Owner assisted deliveries can be good, depending on crew size. All personnel on boats I deliver must complete a crew form. It provides information on next-of-kin, medical issues, and contain prohibitions on weapons and drugs.

Regarding training- If there are 3 of us, it is a grind and not a lot of time for real teaching. After 3-4 days folks settle into the schedule and there is some free time. Add a fourth and there is more free time. However, prior to departure I spend a lot of time with customers planning the passage, discussing weather and making sure the vessel is properly equipped.

[hatteras53]

F.W.I.W...........forget about shipping. Hiring a crew is your only cost effective choice.

[Scrimshaw4]

Besides the cost of getting your boat to the BVI's for the winter season there are several other things you might want to consider.
1. Given that it is already late in the season to start planning the trip, assuming delivery, it may be difficult to get a crew now.
2. The later the start south the worse the weather can get to be, particularly the Christmas Winds howling in from the east. Most boats are south of Annapolis by now.
3. Since it is a new boat you might want to delay going south until next winter so you can be the one to "shakedown" the boat vs having a delivery crew discover problems while off-shore.
4. Have you identified a facility in the islands where the boat will be kept?
I'm sure other will chime in with additional reasons to keep it on the hard this winter.
JMHO

[Ghostrider421]

Originally Posted by hpeer

As I recall there was a thread here about a year ago where some numbers were bandied about. IIRC it was pretty much a was but for a lii in never run. Again, IIRC, fees were roughly $100/day for Capt and $50/day for crew plus all expenses.

But I’m 68 and my memory sucks.

Just guessing there would be a lot of difficulty in arranging the shipment because it’s an unusual route and relatively short and there are not a lot of options.

Again guessing you would have far more options were you to seek a delivery Capt and crew.

HOWEVER your schedule implies moving South during hurricane season. Or waiting until after when there weather generally is lousy.

I’m also assuming that at 52’ it’s not an ICW friendly boat.

Good luck and please report back.

When we were in the shipping business in Panama it was far more costly to put the vessel on DockWise than to just run/sail it to the destination.
DockWise charged one of my customers $20,000USD to bring a 43ft sportfishing boat from Golfito to Ft Lauderdale. If he'd just hired a captain and two crew - with fuel bladders could have made the trip for about half.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Zanshin

Talk with SVAuspicious offline and he'll assist you.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Zanshin. I well remember the good old days on TTOL. I’m sorry to hear about your mast. I hope that was resolved to your satisfaction.

One of the real appeals of shipping is a really long trip done really fast and going along for the ride. Most of the yacht delivery ships have some limited space for passengers. This solves the problem of being in the right place at the right time that Zanshin and I mentioned. The food is good and frankly there is much to be learned from professionals. Note these are not cruise ships so they may be dry. You’ll have to ask. Access to your boat may be limited.

Originally Posted by Snore

@LittleWing -Thanks for the kind words. @CaptainDenver - Auspicious’s planning number is a good ballpark for planning. When you are ready, I too would welcome the opportunity to bid. A link to my website is on my profile page.

Owner assisted deliveries can be good, depending on crew size. All personnel on boats I deliver must complete a crew form. It provides information on next-of-kin, medical issues, and contain prohibitions on weapons and drugs.

Regarding training- If there are 3 of us, it is a grind and not a lot of time for real teaching. After 3-4 days folks settle into the schedule and there is some free time. Add a fourth and there is more free time. However, prior to departure I spend a lot of time with customers planning the passage, discussing weather and making sure the vessel is properly equipped.

Bill (@Snore) and I have similar philosophies here. We’ve never met. We have shared similar experiences on CF.

Bill is getting into some of the important logistics of moving forward with a delivery. From my perspective most of the time sailing is the easy part. Preparation and crew recruitment are the important parts, together of course with responding to emergencies. If all goes well it’s just about keeping the boat moving, eating, and sleeping.

Some skippers will show up and wing it. Others of us do a lot of planning.
Bill’s point about time is well taken. I try to staff to allow time for both individual coaching and group training. We’ve had after dinner presentations. I have a remote for my laptop so I can keep watch and everyone interested can attend. It depends on interests of crew and owners. HF/SSB, long range comms, sail trim, provisioning and offshore cooking, weather, routing, maintenance & repair, electrical diagnosis, plumbing *sigh*, systems, risk management, electronics, whatever you want.

Originally Posted by Scrimshaw4

Besides the cost of getting your boat to the BVI's for the winter season there are several other things you might want to consider.
1. Given that it is already late in the season to start planning the trip, assuming delivery, it may be difficult to get a crew now.
2. The later the start south the worse the weather can get to be, particularly the Christmas Winds howling in from the east. Most boats are south of Annapolis by now.
3. Since it is a new boat you might want to delay going south until next winter so you can be the one to "shakedown" the boat vs having a delivery crew discover problems while off-shore.
4. Have you identified a facility in the islands where the boat will be kept?
I'm sure other will chime in with additional reasons to keep it on the hard this winter.
JMHO

My thoughts on your points:

1. It’s never too late. @CaptainDenver is exploring a delivery, not a cruise. Frankly I’ve not had trouble recruiting crew any time of year. Lots of people are eager for offshore experience. I’ve left the Chesapeake in February and had to turn qualified crew candidates away.

2. The weather is the weather. Hurricane season flows neatly into winter weather. *sigh* There are times you wait before leaving the dock. There are times you wait before getting on an airplane. On that note I tell my crews to never buy an airplane ticket until we can see the dock. Weather stories below.

3. Note that @CaptainDenver is already talking about 2020/21 not 2019/20.

4. There are lots of options in the BVI and indeed the USVI. Depending on @CaptainDenver’s usage plans he may only need a base and not long term dockage. We don’t know because he hasn’t told us yet.

I’m a big fan of in-water storage for winter. Those warm spells can lead to wonderful sails and some magical experiences. For the cost of a few gallons of antifreeze and a few minutes of your time you can have a great time. As the old MasterCard advertisements said: “priceless.”

Crew is indeed an important issue. Maybe Bill and I could present a joint webinar “So you want to crew on a delivery.” What do you think Bill? How about the rest of you?

Promised weather stories.

One. Boat planned to leave Annapolis at the very end of October headed for St Thomas. Common insurance restriction of staying North of the VA/NC border until 1 Nov. Boat work delayed departure. Until mid-December. Crew call got a lot of candidates and we left the dock with a tech writer with a lot of experience, a USCG 1PO, and a mechanical engineer. Me also of course. The first time ever any crew on board knew the current state of the art for ice removal. A day to Norfolk, a day to the Gulf Stream, and it was reasonably warm.

Two. Fly into Martinique and start prep. A tropical wave (late November) unexpectedly starts showing signs of development. Well-informed people started battening down and other delivery crews started flying out. I’m a real weather geek but I don’t trust anyone including myself so I ran my plan past some friends (I’ve meet some great weather professionals speaking at boat shows and rendezvous on a range of topics including weather). Many of you will recognize my friends. My decision based on system position, speed of advance, worst case assessment, and current conditions was to get the heck out of Dodge and head North. I chose a path West of my original route so we could pass St Thomas in just a few days. Note this gave my crew a good way to get home if we did have to stop. Logistics: owner approval, owner’s insurance underwriter (not just the broker) approval, arrangements for a place to go in St Thomas if we needed to stop there. Got the two most common comments on the docks: “You’re gonna f’n die” (no, we’re not) and “Can we follow you?” (if you can keep up). As it happens the system didn’t amount to much and what there was went well South. We ended up a week ahead of the crews that hunkered down. You could say that it is better to be lucky than smart; in this case I don’t think so. We made great time in the right direction with good, planned bailouts and lots of time. I travel with weatherfax so we had good data all the way.

Here is an extra: Left Deltaville VA right after New Year. Deltaville makes transport hard so I singlehanded to Little Creek VA (Norfolk), slept and warmed up, picked up crew at Norfolk International Airport, big shop (much cheaper than in Deltaville), some cooking ahead, and boogie across the Gulf Stream. See story one about state of the art for ice removal. Hint: $20 if you plan ahead, about $30 if you don’t.

All right Bill – you’re up. Late runs to Target for pillows? Fully equipped galley with warped pots and no knife?

[Snore]

To avoid excessive thread drift, one quick one.

My crew and I picked up a boat in Nassau for delivery to the Chesapeake area. Mind you the survey was squeaky clean. The pre-departure inspection showed the stainless steel ‘tower’ the solar panels were mounted on, was joined by cable ties- zip strips. Likewise the panel was held on by zip ties.

I spoke to seller and new owner, they assured me that this rig had been blue water. An email to document my concerns later, some provisioning and we were off. We almost got past Marsh Harbor when the Rube Goldberg contraption fell apart. We saved the panel and all but one of the stainless steel pipes. We then contacted the owner via satellite messenger and he understood.

It is never what breaks, or the owner who becomes ill- it is how you deal with it and avoid it the next time.

Like Dave, I never “wing it.” Preparation is the mother of success

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Snore

Like Dave, I never “wing it.” Preparation is the mother of success

Bill's point is important. The delivery skipper you as an owner choose makes a big difference. To some extent you get what you pay for but price is not always an indication of a good experience. You want someone you can communicate with and interact with effectively. I suggest you'd like to have someone that leaves the boat in better condition than s/he picked it up in. My customers like someone that responds positively to the question "why?"

Bill's story is also apropo. An owner needs to trust their skipper. That trust means confidence in judgement when out of communication and that they'll get caught up as soon as possible. In many cases we not only have your boat but your credit card. If you think I'm fronting fuel cost you should think again. *grin*

So let's go back to the ship or sail question that started this thread.

To ship you're going to want to prep your boat as if for a hurricane. Sails and other canvas off. Clean and prep the boat inside. Give real thought to what ventilation you leave open and what you block. Empty fridge and freezer.

For delivery you have people on board who are motivated for the boat to work because they depend on it. You have to pick the right person for you.

[Lowcountry]

I shipped my Hans Christain 33 from Gandia, Spain to Newport, RI with Seven Star and had a terrible experience with that company. I would not ship with them again. My recommendation would be to have her delivered on her own hull by a competent delivery skipper and crew.

[Mplight]

Brilliant thread! Thank you

[CaptainDenver]

Thank you all for the replies! I’m excited to see how active this community is.

For clarification, we are storing indoors this winter, the potential for the BVI’s would be for the winter of 2020-2021.

At this point, we really have no cemented plans, we are just trying to do some early research to determine what is realistic for us. Beyond that, we want to get to know this new boat before making any decisions. As is expected with a mid-October purchase, we haven’t had any opportunities outside the sea trial to have her under sail but come Spring, we plan on spending as much time on the water as possible to learn all her eccentricities and reassure ourselves that she is seaworthy enough for long passages.

I’m sure I’ll be back soon with more questions for the community, but once again, thank you to everyone that shared their experiences and knowledge.

As for hose of you that reached out about bids, I’ll be sure to reach out to you as soon as any plans are solidified!