Shipping Boats Overseas

Take a boat, put her into a big box, then load her onto a bigger boat to send her overseas. Does it sound surreal? Quite, but sometimes you simply can’t sail her to your destination. She may not be suitable for a sea voyage, or perhaps you would have to sail through a particularly rough area which she wouldn’t be up to, or it may just be the wrong time of year.

Like with any shipping, careful preparation and packaging is essential to getting your boat to its destination undamaged. As the standard shipping container size is 8-foot long, which is often not long enough for a boat’s beam, you will need to dismantle her and protect her different parts until she can be reassembled. The exact requirements will differ from one freight-forwarder to the other, but you can expect to have to lower the rig, remove the spars and secure everything in position and pad it. If your boat hasn’t had a cradle built for her, shrink-wrapping her is a recommended additional protection.

Shipping her in a container has its obvious drawbacks, in that it will be time-consuming to take her apart and put her back together again, but it is definitely more economical.

However, there is an alternative which is becoming increasingly popular, although the routes and schedules offered are limited: some freight-forwarders use special ships whose decks lower below the waterline. Your boat sails into it, and once she is secure, the ship lifts up, with your boat floating on water inside the vessel. At the port of destination, the ship will lower again and your boat will simply sail out of it!

It is a very convenient option, but as you can guess, it is relatively expensive, and container shipping is still, to this date, the preferred method for transporting boats.

For further information on vehicle shipping, contact us, phone us on +64 9 303 0075, or get a free quote.

Click here to see our reference guide to making car shipping stress free with our tried and tested 1-2-3 step process.