Worked at Ericson a million years ago, part-owner of E-34 #7, delighted to be back on the water.
Ericson 32-III "Makana"
Ericson 32-III "Makana"
While I worked on a fair number of just-off-the-truck boats, Way Back When, I had absolutely no experience in preparing a boat to go *onto* a truck when I started this journey. I thought I'd share what I learned, here, in case it benefits someone else in this interesting, exhausting and somewhat scary process. Fair warning, this is long.
---
As mentioned in a previous post, things moved pretty quickly in this deal. For a variety of reasons - including work obligations, travel plans, weather windows and transport schedules - I ended up with a frighteningly small number of days to get a new-to-me boat ready to go onto a truck. The transaction closed on Monday at noon, and the truck would be at the boat yard on Friday at 0800.
Yikes.
So the first thing I tried to do, when it looked like this was really going to happen, was to educate myself on what the various trucking companies recommended in the way of preparation. I quickly learned two key things: One, packing-and-prepping is your problem, not theirs. They're basically contracting to get a boat-shaped thing from Point-A to Point-B, and short of crashing it into an overpass or something, the condition it arrives in is up to you, not them. And, two, they don't know and don't want to know what is inside the boat or how it is protected - as far as they're concerned a boat is a "container", and they take no responsibility for how the contents arrive. In fact, most of the trucking companies direct the owner to lock the boat and keep the key, subtly underscoring their position that their duty of care does not extend to the interior or contents.
That’s a useful bit of information to keep in mind.
In broad terms, trucking-company guidance was fairly straightforward: make sure the highest point on the boat is less than their limit; close, lock and tape any opening hatches and ports, remove spreaders and standing rigging from the mast, remove any items of fabric (winch covers, etc), empty the holding tank and “secure or remove” any personal items within.
Beyond that, their guidance was all over the map…. Some recommended removing deck hardware, for example, some recommended padding/taping it in place, some said leave it alone. Some wanted the fuel tank empty, others just wanted it to be "not full". All the companies seemed to agree on two things: one was to avoid shrink-wrap or any sort of film-based protection on the hull; they said that if the film tears, the flapping edge will do more damage to the hull than anything that might get kicked up along the drive. And, two, the main things to prepare against are wind, vibration, and sudden stops: the boat would be subjected to near-hurricane strength winds during the drive, and anything that might flap, rattle, bounce, or slam forward under emergency braking should be protected.
I also contacted the local yard to ask what their recommendations were. They essentially said “you should hire us to prepare the boat, we do it a lot and you won’t have to worry about a thing.” Yeah, okay, I get that. But their estimate was two guys for three days, plus storage-charges, crane-time and materials. Back-of-the-envelope math, it worked out to $7-8k to get the boat prepared for transport… and at the end of the process not only would my wallet be lighter, I would have missed out on the opportunity to learn a bunch about my new boat, so… I passed on that.
And, I spun up a thread on the “sailing anarchy” forum, soliciting input on a few areas I didn’t feel I had a good handle on. Yes, SA is a bit of a cesspool, but there are some giants in the yachting community that lurk there, and if you can weed through all the pooh being flung by a few howler-monkeys, some good information can often be gleaned. The biggest bit of feedback I got from SA was that I was “overthinking the problem” – consensus was that I should just let them put the boat on the truck and not worry about it. But… I worry. And I’m okay with doing more than I “need to”. She’s worth it.
With all of that info, I started distilling out my priorities, and a plan for the three days. In broad terms, my priorities were fairly simple: I wanted
-- the boat to be ready to load, on time
-- in a state that was compliant with transportation laws, trucking-company guidelines, etc, and
-- prepared in such a way that she would arrive in as good a shape as when she left.
There is a fair amount of “tension” in that short list – the first two items are relatively easy to accomplish if you are willing to ignore the third one. But the third one was my highest personal priority. Why bother to spend the time and money to buy such a nice boat if the first thing that happens is that it rattles itself to pieces on the road? I happily didn’t have to face this, but early in the process I decided that if the boat wasn’t what I considered to be “ready” by the time the haul-out time arrived, I was going to reschedule the truck. I’m sure that decision would have had costs, but the bottom line was I’d rather have her arrive at her new home late-but-healthy.
Within all that, I started building my list. I’m a big “list” guy, and this one was epic. By the time I was done my list was over 20 (handwritten) pages long, but worked out to be a useful exercise for prioritizing my goal for each day of the week. Here’s how it sorted out.
Day Zero – “prep day”:
I met with the broker, signed the papers and got the keys about noon. Steve, the broker, was kind enough to lend me one of his brokerage slips for the week so that I wouldn’t have to go in and out through a yacht club guard-gate with armloads of stuff. In hindsight, this was a HUGE contributor to efficiency. It was less than 50 steps from the back of my rented SUV to the cockpit of the boat – a trip I made countless times during the week. I can’t underscore this enough – if you’re going to do this kind of a project, put the boat someplace where she is easy to get to and work on.
Big priorities for Monday were familiarity, photos and shopping. After spending a pleasant hour or so cruising around Marina del Rey on “my boat” (!), and getting the feel for how she handled at low speeds and in reverse, I put her into her temporary slip and went through her from stem to stern. Mainly wanted to know where everything was – I wanted to know if there were items in lockers or lazarettes that would need to be packed or protected, and start distilling a rough idea of what was going where for the trip.
Also took a ton of photos. Both because it was highly recommended by my insurance company to have a record of the condition before the trip, but also because I wanted my own record of how things were configured. After all, I would be taking the boat apart before I had a chance to get to know her, so I wanted to be sure I had a chance of getting her put back together at the other end. Took, in particular, a ton of photos showing where blocks were positioned and where lines were routed.
And then off to Home Depot to start spending money. I had sort of a rough idea of which things I wanted to pad, which things I wanted to tape closed, which things I wanted to tie down, and what tools I’d need for the job. I took a stab at quantities, rounded up a little, and went shopping. When I was done, I had:
-- three 250-foot rolls of bubble-wrap
-- 4 big rolls of 2” blue (low-tack) paper tape
-- 4 big rolls of “gorilla” (duct) tape
-- a 6-yard remnant of nice plush carpet
-- a couple of spools of “stretch wrap”
-- a bunch of foam “pipe insulation”, and
-- a handful of basic tools (screwdrivers, a good multi-tool, dikes, pliers, etc)
I thought I was overbuying, but as it turns out I used nearly every bit of this stuff - I had about two yards of carpet left at the end, which I gave to the truck driver, and a roll or two of blue tape. I’ll readily admit that I probably over-protected some things, but… again, she’s worth it.
My plan was to use duct-tape to bind things where the surface was already padded or protected, and blue-tape to protect locker/drawer edges and any interior surfaces that I wanted to protect without leaving a residue. But I also wanted something I could use that would seal surfaces without damaging them, and didn’t want to have to deal with residue that duct-tape might leave behind on (for example) hatch lenses or fiberglass surfaces.
Based on a recommendation on Sailing Anarchy, I bought three rolls of 2-inch white “preservation tape” from West Marine in Newport Beach (the only place in the area that had any in stock). I had never heard of “preservation tape” (aka “white tape”), but I'm now a fan - this stuff is worth its weight in gold. It is nominally used to secure the edges of the film when a boat is shrink-wrapped for transport, but it has attributes that make it great for doing other stuff: it stretches, it is waterproof, and it doesn’t leave a residue on hard surfaces. A little spendy (about 30 bucks a roll), but totally worth it.
....to be continued....
B
part 1 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...a-truck-in-three-days-(part-1-of-5-looooooong)
part 2 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-2-of-5-)
part 3 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-3-of-5-)
part 4 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-4-of-5-)
part 5 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-5-the-end-really-)
---
As mentioned in a previous post, things moved pretty quickly in this deal. For a variety of reasons - including work obligations, travel plans, weather windows and transport schedules - I ended up with a frighteningly small number of days to get a new-to-me boat ready to go onto a truck. The transaction closed on Monday at noon, and the truck would be at the boat yard on Friday at 0800.
Yikes.
So the first thing I tried to do, when it looked like this was really going to happen, was to educate myself on what the various trucking companies recommended in the way of preparation. I quickly learned two key things: One, packing-and-prepping is your problem, not theirs. They're basically contracting to get a boat-shaped thing from Point-A to Point-B, and short of crashing it into an overpass or something, the condition it arrives in is up to you, not them. And, two, they don't know and don't want to know what is inside the boat or how it is protected - as far as they're concerned a boat is a "container", and they take no responsibility for how the contents arrive. In fact, most of the trucking companies direct the owner to lock the boat and keep the key, subtly underscoring their position that their duty of care does not extend to the interior or contents.
That’s a useful bit of information to keep in mind.
In broad terms, trucking-company guidance was fairly straightforward: make sure the highest point on the boat is less than their limit; close, lock and tape any opening hatches and ports, remove spreaders and standing rigging from the mast, remove any items of fabric (winch covers, etc), empty the holding tank and “secure or remove” any personal items within.
Beyond that, their guidance was all over the map…. Some recommended removing deck hardware, for example, some recommended padding/taping it in place, some said leave it alone. Some wanted the fuel tank empty, others just wanted it to be "not full". All the companies seemed to agree on two things: one was to avoid shrink-wrap or any sort of film-based protection on the hull; they said that if the film tears, the flapping edge will do more damage to the hull than anything that might get kicked up along the drive. And, two, the main things to prepare against are wind, vibration, and sudden stops: the boat would be subjected to near-hurricane strength winds during the drive, and anything that might flap, rattle, bounce, or slam forward under emergency braking should be protected.
I also contacted the local yard to ask what their recommendations were. They essentially said “you should hire us to prepare the boat, we do it a lot and you won’t have to worry about a thing.” Yeah, okay, I get that. But their estimate was two guys for three days, plus storage-charges, crane-time and materials. Back-of-the-envelope math, it worked out to $7-8k to get the boat prepared for transport… and at the end of the process not only would my wallet be lighter, I would have missed out on the opportunity to learn a bunch about my new boat, so… I passed on that.
And, I spun up a thread on the “sailing anarchy” forum, soliciting input on a few areas I didn’t feel I had a good handle on. Yes, SA is a bit of a cesspool, but there are some giants in the yachting community that lurk there, and if you can weed through all the pooh being flung by a few howler-monkeys, some good information can often be gleaned. The biggest bit of feedback I got from SA was that I was “overthinking the problem” – consensus was that I should just let them put the boat on the truck and not worry about it. But… I worry. And I’m okay with doing more than I “need to”. She’s worth it.
With all of that info, I started distilling out my priorities, and a plan for the three days. In broad terms, my priorities were fairly simple: I wanted
-- the boat to be ready to load, on time
-- in a state that was compliant with transportation laws, trucking-company guidelines, etc, and
-- prepared in such a way that she would arrive in as good a shape as when she left.
There is a fair amount of “tension” in that short list – the first two items are relatively easy to accomplish if you are willing to ignore the third one. But the third one was my highest personal priority. Why bother to spend the time and money to buy such a nice boat if the first thing that happens is that it rattles itself to pieces on the road? I happily didn’t have to face this, but early in the process I decided that if the boat wasn’t what I considered to be “ready” by the time the haul-out time arrived, I was going to reschedule the truck. I’m sure that decision would have had costs, but the bottom line was I’d rather have her arrive at her new home late-but-healthy.
Within all that, I started building my list. I’m a big “list” guy, and this one was epic. By the time I was done my list was over 20 (handwritten) pages long, but worked out to be a useful exercise for prioritizing my goal for each day of the week. Here’s how it sorted out.
Day Zero – “prep day”:
I met with the broker, signed the papers and got the keys about noon. Steve, the broker, was kind enough to lend me one of his brokerage slips for the week so that I wouldn’t have to go in and out through a yacht club guard-gate with armloads of stuff. In hindsight, this was a HUGE contributor to efficiency. It was less than 50 steps from the back of my rented SUV to the cockpit of the boat – a trip I made countless times during the week. I can’t underscore this enough – if you’re going to do this kind of a project, put the boat someplace where she is easy to get to and work on.
Big priorities for Monday were familiarity, photos and shopping. After spending a pleasant hour or so cruising around Marina del Rey on “my boat” (!), and getting the feel for how she handled at low speeds and in reverse, I put her into her temporary slip and went through her from stem to stern. Mainly wanted to know where everything was – I wanted to know if there were items in lockers or lazarettes that would need to be packed or protected, and start distilling a rough idea of what was going where for the trip.
Also took a ton of photos. Both because it was highly recommended by my insurance company to have a record of the condition before the trip, but also because I wanted my own record of how things were configured. After all, I would be taking the boat apart before I had a chance to get to know her, so I wanted to be sure I had a chance of getting her put back together at the other end. Took, in particular, a ton of photos showing where blocks were positioned and where lines were routed.
And then off to Home Depot to start spending money. I had sort of a rough idea of which things I wanted to pad, which things I wanted to tape closed, which things I wanted to tie down, and what tools I’d need for the job. I took a stab at quantities, rounded up a little, and went shopping. When I was done, I had:
-- three 250-foot rolls of bubble-wrap
-- 4 big rolls of 2” blue (low-tack) paper tape
-- 4 big rolls of “gorilla” (duct) tape
-- a 6-yard remnant of nice plush carpet
-- a couple of spools of “stretch wrap”
-- a bunch of foam “pipe insulation”, and
-- a handful of basic tools (screwdrivers, a good multi-tool, dikes, pliers, etc)
I thought I was overbuying, but as it turns out I used nearly every bit of this stuff - I had about two yards of carpet left at the end, which I gave to the truck driver, and a roll or two of blue tape. I’ll readily admit that I probably over-protected some things, but… again, she’s worth it.
My plan was to use duct-tape to bind things where the surface was already padded or protected, and blue-tape to protect locker/drawer edges and any interior surfaces that I wanted to protect without leaving a residue. But I also wanted something I could use that would seal surfaces without damaging them, and didn’t want to have to deal with residue that duct-tape might leave behind on (for example) hatch lenses or fiberglass surfaces.
Based on a recommendation on Sailing Anarchy, I bought three rolls of 2-inch white “preservation tape” from West Marine in Newport Beach (the only place in the area that had any in stock). I had never heard of “preservation tape” (aka “white tape”), but I'm now a fan - this stuff is worth its weight in gold. It is nominally used to secure the edges of the film when a boat is shrink-wrapped for transport, but it has attributes that make it great for doing other stuff: it stretches, it is waterproof, and it doesn’t leave a residue on hard surfaces. A little spendy (about 30 bucks a roll), but totally worth it.
....to be continued....
B
part 1 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...a-truck-in-three-days-(part-1-of-5-looooooong)
part 2 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-2-of-5-)
part 3 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-3-of-5-)
part 4 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...to-boat-on-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-4-of-5-)
part 5 of 5: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...-a-truck-in-three-days-(part-5-the-end-really-)
