Having a RIB shipped across country

PacificNWrib · 01 March 2007, 17:33

Does anyone have any experience in doing this? I am looking at a project RIB in the NE and would like to get it to the NW.

Thoughts or ideas?

jyasaki · 01 March 2007, 17:44

Some trucking firms will ship for a reasonable fee when they have open trailer space. How big a boat are you looking at?

jky

PacificNWrib · 01 March 2007, 17:53

A 440. So 14ft and 5 inches long.

Donnie144 · 01 March 2007, 18:16

It was a F@#!@ night mare!! It took 3 months to get the damn thing out of the door and a lot of foot work on my end. Most of the problems came from getting it rigged before shipping though. If I had to do it over I would have gave up the 4K I saved by having it rigged over there and did it local. If I was buying another RIB for the east coast I would spend the week to drive out and pick it up. For a 6.5M I think the shipping charge was about 3.5K plus another 1k for the packing and shipping cradle. All of my problems came from the dealer end not the shipping end. Once Watkins picked it up they did manage to put a hole in a tube and crack the housing on one of my motors.

sunrider · 01 March 2007, 18:17

You might want to check out uShip.com. The service allows you to post a shipment and ask for bids, which will come from pro truckers and also people like me who just happen to be going your way. I have used it several times to have items shipped to me, and also have towed other people's boats cross country to offset my expenses when I'm travelling to pick up or deliver one of my boats.

Be careful about checking a shipper's references though....I've had several people not follow through with agreements - the result was inconvenience but no lost dollars.

A boat that size would fit easily on a flatbed, or could be hauled by someone going your way. There is a search function on the web site that will give you average costs for similar loads for comparable shipments. If towed on its own trailer you could expect bids in the $1-1.50/mile range, but if you're not in a hurry might get lucky and get it at half that price.

best of luck.....

Dave Berry · 01 March 2007, 18:32

We have shipped a few 10 ft. RIBs to Florida for some of our customers. Each time we made a crate to fully enclosed and protect the boat. We have never had any claims for shipping damage. Consider going overboard with the packaging so you don't have any repairs to make once you receive the boat.

DB

jyasaki · 02 March 2007, 05:28

As to my post; contact a couple of trucking agencies where you need to have the boat shipped from. Most trucking companies are pretty well networked with every other one; they can probably give you some advice.

If you do it commercially, you're going to spend the fortune that Donnie talked about.

jky

Stoo · 03 March 2007, 02:24

You might also check with one of the RIB manufacturers in Vancouver area... Zodiac Hurricane, Titan, Polaris... They ship boats east all the time... so presumably, whoever schleps them east, could just as easily schlep them west...