Has Anyone Shipped A Boat By Frieght?

[Jason Diamond]

I am looking for any suggestions on the best way / company to ship an SST45, hull only, no trailer, from Florida to Washington state. I see a bunch of door to door offers online, but some sound to good to be true. Any thoughts?

Jason

[HRTV]

Gary or Eric Pugh out of Tenn. will have all the answers you need regarding shipping a SST45 hull. Gary is not a member of HydroRacer.Net but his brother is around from time to time. You can also contact Pugh Boat Works in Tenn. Someone here might also have the phone number.

[crankbearing]

Shipping

Hey Jason,

I shipped a 12' Pugh hydro to Vancouver from Ottawa. It was 866$ Cdn with my 40% discount by Manitoulin Transport (like yellow freight). I built a crate to completely surround the boat. I basically built a base with two support stringers like our trailers would have and then built a frame and covered the whole thing in.

Regards,

[hydroplay]

I have shipped a hydro by freight quite a few years ago and had a similar experience to Dave's. Crating was necessary. It was fairly simple to make a base and then put two main support stringers on and very securely tie the boat to that and then build the rest of the box around it. I skinned it with lauan ply but have seen "open" crates with just 1x2 framing, however all those were for smaller items than a 45 hull. Most larger areas have professional crating companies who do stuff like this every day.

[Bill Huson]

Yes, crating . . .

My single experience with boat shipping was when I was general sales manager at a marina. A rich Egyptian dude bought a 19' Carlson from me - cash deal - but I had to tow the rig out to Dulles Airport so it could be slipped in a container and air frieghted to Egypt! To make it fit the container size I had to leave the outdrive in the boat cockpit, remove the tilt/trim cylinders and the trailer hitch thingy from the front of the trailer and pack them in the cockpit. Air frieght dude goes "Hmmm" and measures the rig. "Yep, it'll fit, just barely." Barely was right, less than an inch shy of the max length.

I have no clue what the shipping charge was, afraid to ask

[T Chance]

Insurance

Make sure you have ample insurance on it. I remember a time back in the '70's when Rex Hall shipped a 13' DeSilva runabout. He build a nice crate, but when it arrived it had two holes punched clear through it and the boat - fork lift wide.