Boat Movers

[dce]

Has anyone used San Diego Boat Movers or Joule Transport to move a boat?  Looking for a mover from San Diego to San Francisco with a good reputation, have seen the results of a bad mover on a friend's boat. Thanks - Diane

[tommyt]

Hi,

Know nothing about your listed movers, but you might consider calling Catalina. They must have a list of movers they trust to deliver boats around the country. Don't know if they use local movers, but Woodland Hills is certainly not that far from SD.

Good Luck

[dbpaul]

I used Dudley in Feb 2007 to move my C310 from Marina Del Ray LA area to Anacortes, Wa $3680 .
Highley recomend them.
Here is their link.

  http://www.dudleyboats.com/
paulj

[Roger Blake]

If it were me, I'd sail it up! I'm sure you have good reasons not to. Have you considered having someone sail it up for you (delivery) instead?

[tonywright]

I had a great company move my boat over land from Boston to Ottawa last year. But I don't think that recommending them would help you much on the West Coast!

However, I think that in addition to a careful trucking company with experience moving this size boat and good equipment, you need to arrange several other things:

1) Experienced crane operators each end to manage the lift of the boat carefully. Make sure that everyone knows that the weight of the boat is more likely to be as much as 18,000 lb, and not the advertised 12,500. This affects the size of crane and the useable reach of the crane for launch (unless you are lucky enough to have a travel-lift at each end). The best lifting points are not where the Catalina manual says, but under the rear and forward bulkheads. Lifting at the Catalina suggested points will result in an unstable lift.  If you have radar etc, make sure you know where to disconnect it before unstepping the mast (lesson learned on this one!)

2) A good rigger/packer to help ready the mast and all other equipment for shipping. I found a great guy who carefully disassembled everything, labelled it, wrapped it in protective packaging and packed everything low down in the boat surrounded by foam. I assisted/ watched/photographed for the first few hours.  As much as possible on the exterior of the boat was shrink-wrapped: mast, boom, steering column, etc. You might want to transport some stuff by car yourself, such as electronics. Also cover the the hatches with towels or foam and shrink-wrap to protect from flying road gravel. Tape all doors and cupboards shut.   The driver double-checked to make sure all was secure before taking it on the road.

3) Very important: disconnect the shaft from the transmission, and drain the muffler. This last step can save your engine. Apparently if water is left in the muffler, braking forces from the truck could send water up into the cylinders. Has been known to wreck engines, apparently.

4) If you have a furling mast, consider leaving the sail inside to cushion the inner part of the mast during transport.

Our boat arrived with no damage after taking these precautions. It was also straight forward to put back together, although time-consuming.


Tony

[Mike and Joanne Stimmler]

I can reccomend a good delivery captain  in S.D if you want to consider that option.
Email me at the address below if you want the info.
If you have the time, you may even want to consider going along for the experience.

Good luck,
Mike

[dce]

Thanks for all the responses.  We are unable to sail this up to SF due to job restrictions and the boat is not ready for that either.  We appreciate all the responses from the group. - Diane and Brad (future C34 owners)

[captran]

ditto on Dudley- high recommendations.  I had heard they were hired to move new Catalina 35's so figured that would be OK for my 1997.  There are alot of quotes cheaper from others.  $7800 wasnt cheap-  from Ft Pierce Florida to Anacortes Washington, but my boat arrived in the same condition that it left in.  We did get charged an arm and a leg to have the mast bubble wrapped by the marina down there, but it was worth it.

[Roland Gendreau]

I used http://www.a1haulaboat.com/ to get quotes for moving my C34 from Florida to MA and they were very competitive. They use multiple carriers and the one they used for my boat was competent
.
As mentioned, prepraration for hauling and de-rigging is most important. The yard wrapped my mast and it was well protected for the journey.

At the delivery end, the marina took the boat off the truck with a travel lift.   5 guys lifted the mast off the truck and carried it to the rack.

My only complaint was that the yard in florida forgot to winterize the water system; they ended up footing the bill for a new hot water heater. :)

Roland Gendreau
Gratitude #1183