Boat and Yacht Transport Part 1: Trucking

The obvious way to get your boat from point A to point B is to sail it. If you have the time, the boat, the equipment, the crew, the experience, the seasonal window, and the inclination, then that's the way to go. But what if you don't have these things? What if you want to spend some time on your own boat exploring rugged, foggy coves, and then want to spend some time anchored off a sunny beach strewn with coconuts, but you don't want to sail the thousands of miles between the two? Enter the marine transport industry.

In this three-part series, we'll be looking at the different ways you can move your boat. Our first option: trucking.

Trucking a boat is sometimes the best option for transport. It's fast, scheduling is usually flexible, and if the boat is properly prepared and the transporter experienced, the wear and tear on the boat can be minimal. Obviously, it requires that there be roads between where your boat is and where you want it to be, and sometimes you may have to transfer the boat to another truck at international borders. However, if your transport is trans-continental, or even if it's just a few hundred miles over good roads, trucking is sometimes the least expensive choice.

Assuming your boat isn't trailerable, you'll need to hire a truck. We've transported our boat on the back of a semi twice now. The first time, we had a yard prepare the boat on one side of the trip, and another yard put her back together on the other side. The second time, we did the work ourselves. As you would expect, the results were better when we did the work.

Step 1: The bid

We spoke with several trucking companies before we decided upon one. There are some loose associations of independent transporters (some merely guys and gals with pickup trucks) online and off, where you can request “the best” quote. Maybe things have improved, but we had absolutely no luck with these folks. We found the respondents to be entirely unprofessional, and many to be downright dishonest about equipment, experience and insurance.

In order to find the best company for the job, we asked at the boatyards. By asking questions like “who seems to do the best job,” rather than “who do you work with,” we quickly narrowed our search from the many options seemingly available on the West Coast of North America, to just two. Two companies with professional equipment, professional drivers, and a professional reputation.

When asking for a bid, you'll need the exact measurements of your boat's length, beam, and height from the bottom of the keel to the tallest object (beam and height are the most critical). The company should arrange for any pilot vehicles required for an “oversize load,” and include that in your quote. Make sure that's clear.

You should understand the trucking industry a bit to get the best price. If you say “I need this boat moved from here to here on this date,” you will get a bid that reflects the fact that you are setting the schedule. If you say “I need a boat moved from this area to this area, within this time-frame,” you'll likely get a lower bid. The reason is the deadhead (an empty load).

No trucking company wants to haul a deadhead to pick up a boat; they want paid loads going both ways. So if you can be flexible, and accommodate the company's schedule, let them know. You can sometimes save thousands.

Step 2: The Preparation

Boats are generally built to go more slowly than highway speeds, and to do so fairly gently. The hard vibrations of trucking, the constant 60+ mph wind, and the rocks and bugs and salt and tar are all part of the joys of overland transport. While you can hire out the prep, and the driver will usually check it fairly thoroughly, nobody is going to be as careful as you are with your own boat. This is a critical phase in the transport, and likely to be the cause of most problems.

If you have a sailboat, the mast needs to be removed. Before doing this, there are some steps which will save you a lot of time and energy down the road. First, you'll want to mark all of your turnbuckles with tape, right where the threads meet the turnbuckle. This way, you know exactly how they were adjusted, and can just screw them back together when you raise the mast later.

Next: label your standing rigging. Sure, you know your uppers from your lowers, but when you're standing under a crane, trying to put everything back while you're thinking about how much the crane is costing you, “port, forward, lower” on a label is a godsend, and helpers don't need to ask you about each piece.

Now, if you don't have a digital camera, buy one. You're going to be taking a lot of photos of what you think will be obvious (like how things connect). Photograph your rig, your deck, your hull, and everything else. This will not only help you put things back together when they're far less 'obvious,' but will help document any damage that occurs. Time to be a shutterbug.

Next comes the mast wiring. If your mast hasn't been removed for years, you might find that much of the wiring is continuous from the panel through the mast. This leaves you with the option of pulling the wires (either from the boat or from the mast), or marking and cutting the wires, and then adding connectors. For mast-mounted radar, you'll likely want to pull the cable. For VHF and 12V, you'll probably want to mark, cut and reconnect. Mast-top anemometers and such will have to be dealt with on a per-case basis, but are usually fairly easy to reconnect.

Now you're ready to pull the mast. Remove the sails, remove the running rigging from the deck and tie it to the mast. Remove the boom. Remove the cotter rings from your turnbuckles, and slack them with a couple of turns of each turnbuckle. If you have roller reefing, DON'T loosen it. You can slack it from the backstay and it will be in the same adjustment when you put it back. Now you're ready for the crane.

There is a tendency to try to rush through the dismasting. When you think of what you're paying for the crane and operator, you may find yourself scrambling around to save a few bucks. STOP! Take a breath, and realize that saving yourself five minutes on this end may cost you five hours on the other. Slow and easy is how you deal with a huge, expensive weight above your head, and if your crane operator doesn't agree, it would be an excellent time to remind him (or her) who's paying.

Once your stick is sitting on sawhorses, remove anything fragile from the mast (radar, antenna, lights, anemometer, etc.), and ask the trucking company if you should secure the standing rigging to the mast, or remove it (the best choice is usually removal). Also remove anything from the deck that isn't firmly attached. This includes anchors - 40 or so pounds banging against your bow mile after mile is not a good idea. Weathercloths, lifeslings, canvas covers and the like will need to be removed, or they'll end up as fluff on the side of the freeway. Anything that jiggles or wiggles needs to be secured and/or padded, as will the mast and boom.

We've used bubble-wrap with success, but by far our top choice is old carpeting and reinforced packing tape. Ask a carpeting place if they're doing any removals, and offer to pick up the old carpet (which is garbage for them). We used a living room and two bedrooms last time we trucked. The driver loved it, and a fellow mariner was grinning ear-to-ear at the destination boatyard when we gave him the filthy old rug for his own asphalt adventure. That same carpet may still be padding a boat in transport to this day.

Once the spars are removed and wrapped, the deck is cleared, all canvas is removed (along with any over-height structures like hard dodgers and radar arches), and everything that can be is securely wedged and padded down below, you're ready to truck. Close all hatches, tape them, and tie them down with line (padded with carpet). Remember that a truck on the freeway, bucking headwinds, can result in hurricane wind speeds on your boat. Keep that in mind when you look her over.

A note about shrink-wrapping: We've seen shrink-wrapped boats in transport, and have asked several truckers their opinions. Most said that the shrink-wrapping usually doesn't last the trip, that it often shreds and flogs, and thus can cause much more damage than it prevents. The advice we got was that unless you're going to be trucking over salted roads or gravel, shrink-wrapping is not advised. To protect our boat against the bugs, grit, diesel soot, etc., we smeared a coat of paste wax over everything facing forward or aft (since you don't know which way your truck will be loaded), and left it chalky until the boat arrived (didn't rub it out). All the little nasties just wiped off!

Step 3: The Loading

When the trucker shows up, walk him/her through your prep work. Ask if there's anything else you can do, and do it. Also be ready with carpet scraps to pad any straps or lines that touch your gel-coat. Finally, take more pictures as the boat is loaded, and while it's sitting on the trailer. Saying “this is so exciting” might draw attention away from the fact that you're gathering evidence.

When the truck's loaded, make sure there's nothing left behind - check that every part of your boat is now on the trailer, secured, and ready for transport. The project is now out of your hands!

Step 4: The Other End

You may be there to meet your boat when it arrives, or you may not. If not, tell the boatyard to photograph any damage they see on the boat prior to lifting it off the truck. This way there's no question about what happened when. If they're re-masting for you, let them know how you marked everything. If you're doing it yourself, BRING YOUR CAMERA with the photos you took before you dismasted. You may find a photo to be invaluable, and if it's sitting at home, it's of no use.

Before re-masting, take a good look. You may never get a chance to check out your mast so easily again, so take advantage of this! What you can take care of now will save you trips up the mast later. Because of pollution and other factors (like it doesn't get rinsed), mast-top hardware sometimes gets the worst corrosion. Check it while you're comfortably standing next to it, and you'll be a lot more picky than when you're up in the bosun's chair. Now's the time for a good coat of wax (or varnish on wood spars). It's also an excellent time to change your standing rigging, as you can bring it into a rigger and have each length of wire copied exactly, all at once.

Conclusion: Trucking a boat is an excellent option for those without the time, skills, type of boat or inclination to make ocean passages, and of course the only option for land-locked locations. In the next article we'll focus on how to move your boat if there aren't any roads.