I spent about half a day at KKMI yesterday getting the boat off the semi trailer and on the hard. From the finish line off Diamond Head to my local yard, shipping home took 41 days and cost me almost half of the boat’s actual value.
Nightmare is too strong a word, but it was by far the most stressful/least enjoyable/most expensive part of this whole project. I’m definitely happy to discuss with anyone considering shipping a boat point-to-point, especially from Hawaii. I’m also considering an article for one of the sailing mags (maybe latitude), but here are the points that jump to mind:
1. The main advantage was that I save a month of work/vacation and boat wear/tear by not sailing her back myself. This is a big advantage.
2. The main disadvantage is that you are out of control the entire time. At any given point, a boat yard, shipping company, shipping agent, trucker, etc., has your boat, and you basically are over a barrel in terms of price/speed/quality. Regardless of how dissatisfied you are, they always let you know that they’ve got your boat, that you are X-thousand miles away, and that if you delay, the boat will not make it home. Everyone along the way needs payment (in cash, natch) before they will deliver to the next step.
3. The Hawaii boatyard I worked with (Keehi) was terrible. They were bad communicators, had basically hostile customer service, and exceeded their estimate by 3x without even calling, even though we’d specifically requested them to. I’d never recommend them.
4. The Hawaiian “expediter” that Keehi recommended (after telling us that they basically didn’t give a crap about sailboats and that we should hire someone to “keep an eye” on the yard work) was a super nice guy and very helpful. I also suspect that he way overcharged us. 30+ hours (at $85/hour) to de-rig and prep the boat. Considering that we pulled all the running rigging, removed the boom and vang, and disconnected all the mast electronics, that seems kind of outrageous. I’m not going to name him, since (now that the boat is back), I’d like to give him a chance to revise his invoice (which I’ve already paid, of course).
5. The shipping/stateside “expediter” (Kevin Jones from KevCo) was recommended (lukewarmly) by folks who’ve shipped with him before. It turns out he’s in a perma-feud with the boatyard in Hawaii, of course. Besides asking for a shady-sounding cash deposit the day before the race, and being flaky about returning phone calls and sending estimates, and going about 50% overbudget, he was okay. Meaning, at least he was nice on the phone when we could get a hold of him. Also, according to Kehii and the HI expediter, the trailer that I “rented” from him (for about what would have cost me to buy one, natch) showed up at Kehii disassembled and missing parts. This is he-said/she-said, of course.
6. Pasha, the shipper, was pretty much invisible to me. It seemed that they did their job for about what I would have expected: About $4K from HI to Long Beach. No muss, no fuss.
7. The trucker, Wilmington Boat Movers, showed up a day early, which caused a small panic at KKMI, needed payment in cash, and charged about $5500 to truck the boat up from Long Beach (or at least, that’s what KevCo charged as a line item). Since Charlie had the identical boat shipped from Maryland for not too much more than that, I’d say I got overcharged. They also use a trailer that supports the keel on slings, not a hard bed. I’m a little worried that might have damaged the keel/hull connection if it swung around on the road.
8. KKMI is a great boatyard. There’s not a single service provider that I used on this project (except maybe Pasha) that I’d use again or recommend. I recommend KKMI to everybody.