Log XIV - Artemis 1 (Shipping - Part 1)

The length of my boat is 33ft but with the addition of the bow pulpit and transom swimming platform, the total length adds up to 38ft. She has a width and height of around 13ft each and therefore cannot be fitted into a standard 40ft container. She had to be transported using a flat rack.

Photo of another boat on a flat rack

A flat rack is simply a metal deck with a wooden cradle on top for the boat to sit on. The boat will be secured by using straps tying down onto the flat rack. This method of shipping will cost much more than using a container as there is no space efficiency on a container ship due to the unusable stacking space on top of the rack.

Since the re-conditioning work took 3 months to complete, I had ample time to look for a reliable and cheap shipping agent. I had requested for quotations from both US agents and local Singapore agents and my conclusion is - engage an US agent for the interstates and international shipping and local agent for shipping within Singapore. This will be the most cost effective but you will have to do some coordination work yourself when the boat arrives.

Please try to get as many quotations as possible especially on the international shipping. You will be surprised that the costs can vary by tens of thousands. As a reference, the highest quote I had gotten was $40k and the lowest was $15k. But please do not be too happy if you get a very cheap quote because some of them may not be reliable and worst case scenario, they may be scams. I had approached a few shipping companies and somehow my information was shared to other shipping agents which I did not request quotation from. I received calls at night from unknown shipping companies asking for my boat information and offering their services. These are the companies that gave me the lowest quotes.

I felt insecure using the cheapest shipping company and so I did a background check. I was shock that this company with the cheapest quote was not even listed in the US list of approved shipping agents. I could not imagine what will happen if I engage them. Perhaps I can still get my boat in the end but I better not leave the fate of such a big investment to chance. In the end I engaged a shipping company with a proven track record and the costs was around $20k. This price was way off my budget by the way because I made the mistake of extrapolating the costs based on normal container shipping rates when I was planning the purchase.

Contacts were given to the shipyard and the shipping agent so that they could coordinate the loading out.

The boat was transported over 600km on road across the states from Gulfport in Mississippi to Savannah in Georgia. And after a 2 weeks delay at Savannah port due to some labour shortage issue, my boat was finally ready to begin her voyage across the oceans to this little red dot.

Oops did I forget to shrink wrapped the boat before shipping? Sadly yes, I really had forgotten to ask the shipping agent to do it. She would be collecting dust from half the globe for 6 weeks as a welcome gift to her new owner.