Shipping a Boat

[Tmacmi]

Does anybody here have any experience with shipping a C34? Something may have caught my eye. I would need to have it shipped from Duluth to Milwaukee. That's about 400 miles.

Also does anybody know the overall height of the boat from the bottom of the keel to the top of the cabin.  Thank you

[waughoo]

I just shipped one from Lake of the Ozarks Missouri to Seattle Wa.  It came out on what looked like an oversized J24 trailer behind an F450 superduty pickup truck. The mast ended up on deck rather than on his mast cradle as it was a bit longer than he expected.  Other than that, it was an uneventful trip.

[Tmacmi]

That's perfect. Unfortunately for you, you are going to be the target of all my questions.

How did you inspect? Broker show you a facetime walk through?  Fly out? Just hire a surveyor and go for it?

Do you mind if I ask generally how much per mile you spent?

[dfloeter]

Last year we trucked our's from Annapolis to Traverse City MI for $4600.  It was an infinitely customizable flat bed designed to carry boats. 

[Tmacmi]

It's nice to meet another Michiganander.  We keep our boat in South Haven. The theory would be to ship to and sail to South Haven.

Same question regarding boat inspections at a distance. Do you just suck it up and travel 10 hours on a possibility?

[dfloeter]

I would definitely make the trip and see the boat firsthand.  If you get the boat, sail north to the clear water and lovely islands of northern Lake Michigan.

[Roland Gendreau]

About 15 years ago, I bought my C34  in Clearwater Florida.  As I am located in RI, I flew down there to look at it
and 2 others before the sale , then went back down there when it was being surveyed, launched and sea trialed.   I went thru a broker to arrange for it to be shipped to RI.

[waughoo]

I will have to look up the cost.  It was reasonable based on other quotes I got.  I inspected the boat and had it surveyed before purchased and then once I had an accepted offer, the yard prepared the boat, unstepped the mast, and loaded it on to the shipper's trailer.  I then got a few uodates via text from the driver and met him for unload when he arrived.  I'm away (on the boat actually for the first long weekend since purchase and minor refit) but will look it up when I get back.

[captran]

In 2004-05 (October/November ) we researched and found out that a Company called Dudley Boat Company was the Company Catalina uses in Florida to haul new Catalina 35s.  so we went with them.  It was $8,000 to move Voyager from Ft Pierce to Anacortes Wa.  They use a semi.  Mast was on the trailer.  I was working at the time and could not take time off, so there was a yard charge for loading, but I don't remember what that was.

[scgunner]

Tmacmi,

Since I live in SoCal and have a huge selection of boats to choose from that can be sailed home, from Santa Barbara to San Diego, I know nothing about overland shipping, but I do have some experience with long distance vehicle purchase. If the boat checks all your boxes, the first thing I'd look for is how willing the seller is to work with you. On your end you should let the seller know you're a serious buyer not just a looky loo.

Before I made that drive I'd want to see pictures of the boat, a lot of pictures. These days when a car is sold on the internet it's not unusual for the seller to post 100+ pictures, in fact it's pretty common. Since you are serious and long distance the seller should be willing to send you a pretty comprehensive picture essay. Also before you go to look in person the two of you should be pretty close in price, depending on what you find when you actually see it. Don't go there in hopes of low balling the guy, otherwise you'll probably wind up with a long road trip and no boat.

[Stu Jackson]

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Also does anybody know the overall height of the boat from the bottom of the keel to the top of the cabin.  Thank you

What keel?

In addition to the fine comments so far, I can offer this: 

When we were looking for our next boat in 1997 we had owned a Catalina 22 for a few years and a Catalina 25 since 1987.  We started looking at C30s, but soon realized that all they were were a larger version of our own C25, which we really liked.  Then my wife pulled out a brochure that we'd gotten at a sailboat show:  Catalina 34.  Written across the top was: "Cory's next boat"

We spent the NEXT ENTIRE YEAR looking at NOTHING BUT C34s.  We saw some horrible examples of neglect and abuse.  One day we found one, visited the sellers who told us a lot of things, then had it surveyed.  It failed.  One reason was the fridge, which the sellers had gone out of their way to show us how well it worked.  Tied to the dock.  It was a dual voltage Norcold.  Problem was it didn't work on DC!!!  Our surveyor didn't miss that one.

We finally bailed on that deal, and the next week found Aquavite.  This PO kept an immaculate boat, and had done many of the Critical Upgrades, although he'd missed a few.  [This was more than a decade before I cobbled together the Critical Upgrades, but I'd discovered the C34 website which was in its infancy back then.]  I knew what to look for.

Points being:

Please be careful of photos only.
Don't depend on a survey to catch everything.
Become knowledgeable about whatever boat, Catalina, Catalina 34 or ANY other boat, before you even go look at it.
Make a checklist of important things to look at when you do view a candidate, write things down and take pictures.

If you've done these things, you'll be much better prepared when the time comes.

Good luck, happy hunting.

[Sailing Amok]

We shipped Coral Wave from Kingston, ON to Thunder Bay, ON (1,550 km or 960ish miles) last fall, when we relocated. It cost us about $6800, but everything in Canada is more expensive. We were super happy with the company we used, Andrew's Trucking. I suspect they only operate on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes though.
We have a shoal draft, and still had to remove all the enclosure frames etc to make the max height requirement. The biggest pain was removing the davits, which would have put the load just a couple inches over the legal limit for the highway. Mostly that was a pain because the boat was still in the water at the time, due to time constraints on the haul out/shipping day.
It took the better part of an afternoon for the driver to essentially customise the bed to hold the boat perfectly. The sort of modular nature of the truck and the amount of  adjustability was actually pretty impressive to see, and definitely made us feel more relaxed about the move. Everything looked so nice and secure. The mast went on a special rack on the side of the truck.
We have a shoal draft, and still had to remove all the enclosure frames etc to make the max height requirement. The biggest pain was removing the davits, which were just a couple inches over the legal limit for the highway. Mostly that was a pain because the boat was still in the water at the time, due to time constraints on the haul out/shipping day.
Unloading the boat was a much more simple affair, I think it took under an hour.

[mark_53]

Have you tried an online auction?  There is a TV show called "Shipping Wars".  You post what you want shipped and shippers will bid on it. I've seen boats shipped on it.   I don't have a link but Google might.