Boat Delivery - How much does it cost?

[Zanziba]

If I was to buy a 42' Bavaria in say Greece or Croatia, what is the best way to get it to the UK?

A) Get me plus 5 mates to sail back in a couple of weeks, non-stop? Cost circa £2000 for flights / food.

B) Have a lorry bring it back? That would be lorry, stepping mast etc.

Anyone got any ideas of good companies or cost of delivery and how it compares to sailing it back?

 

[nimbusgb]

Sail back - if you are lucky 5 weeks, add a few days from Croatia. Allow for the inevitable stop overs and crew changes. Have your mates got 5 weeks to spare? You will need a week to get ready for the trip. Sorting out, packing, victualing, buying bits not aboard, fixing stuff that needs fixing, never ending list!

A delivery skipper will start at around €4000 and work up from there and there's an additional fund for his/her flights, diesel, marina charges etc etc.

I got a quote for a backload across France for €5000 for a 39' boat. Add mast in out / craneage and marina time at both ends. Plus 2 - 3 weeks to get from Croatia or Greece to France.

I got a quote on a deck load from Athens to Southampton for a 39' boat. €17000. Didn't bother even trying to get altenative quotes, just in the wrong ballpark.

If you had to pop in to an Italian West or French south coast marina for a couple of nights it could cost you €100 or more a night. Nearly a grand for a month.

Will the Bav 42 go through the french canals? ie 1.65 or less draft? 4 or 5 weeeks trip and around 3k. But still have to get to South of France.

Don't even start the trip without allocating €10k to the 'moving fund'

 

[Tranona]

Having just done it can give you pretty accurate cost. You need to either sail it all the way - takes about 3-4 weeks and a delivery crew would be about £4k plus expenses of around £2k depending on amount of motoring and number of marina stops. Plus of course potential wear and tear on the boat. Almost certainly you will also need to spend money on extra equipment and insurance for the Atlantic part of the trip. Your 2 weeks non stop with 5 mates is pretty unrealistic. You are going against the prevailing winds and currents and it is 2500 miles give or take plus if you go early in the season to minimze the adverse conditions off the Atlantic coast you need to make allowances for weather crossing the Bay of Biscay. Our original schedule was 25 days with a very experienced skipper who had done it before. We motored for over 150 hours (about 800 out of the 1000 miles) to keep up the schedule and spent nearly 500 euros on fuel.

The alternative is road from somewhere on mainland Europe. The most popular places are Slovenia, South of France or Spain as these are the locations where new boats are delivered and therefore best choice of trucking. If you can get a return load (ie you are not fussed about timing) the truck would be around £4k plus cranage to a channel port. You can get deals as it is a very competitive business.

I sailed my 37 footer from Corfu with a professional crew, intending to go round the outside but for various reasons only got as far as Spain. Cost including airfares was around £2.5k. Then had a truck back to Poole for £4.25k plus about £600 cranage, demasting and remasting (including some replacement work on the rigging).

Hope this helps

 

[penfold]

What the others said; I crewed on a delivery(experienced skipper, organised by Reliance) in 2000, a Dromor Apollo 16 from Preveza to Southampton. It took a week of prep(shagged out ex-charter boat), and a month of hard going to get there(hand steering!), and 5 days of that were storm bound. We burnt £1000 of diesel and wrecked the main and genoa(although they were shagged and we were sailing in December, so self-inflicted via 50kts(indicated) of wind).

 

[Zanziba]

Thank you for the replies!

I would be looking at next summer 2012 to buy and given the costs involved in transportation then I would consider either getting it brought by lorry (£4.5k - £5k) more likely than sailing it back. I've little experience and my crew would be likewise unless I hired but that's adding a lot of money to quite a cheap yacht. This also limits locations for purchase (Not many lorries can drive to Mallorca).

The alternative would be to wait and see if one comes up in Northern Europe (Holland for instance) or the UK and just sail it back myself taking my time with a volunteer crew.

 

[Gwylan]

Seems to me, having read a number posts on the subject, that if you want a boat there then you buy one there and if you want one here then you buy one here. We took 10 days bringing a boat back from Lagos to Swansea without hanging around - took a lot of motoring to achieve that anyway.

 

[Tranona]

If you want a boat for use in UK buy it in Northern Europe. Ex charter boats can look cheap in Greece or Croatia but by the time you have paid VAT, transported them and kitted them out for sailing here the price advantage disappears.

It only makes sense if you already own the boat and you treat the return trip as part of your "adventure", Same applies going the other way. If you want a boat for sailing in the Med, buy one already there unless "getting there" is one of your objectives. There are of course, exceptions because sometimes the boat you desparately want is elsewhere, but for AWBs there is just as much potential choice here as in the Med.

 

[Bobc]

A lot of the boats that look cheap over there, are cheap for a reason. As said before, once you add the VAT, the hassle, the delivery costs, and all the bits that you'll have to replace to get the boat in anything like decent condition, you'll have paid about the same (if not more) than if you bought one here.

I did this exercise 12 years ago in France when I was looking for a First345 (couldn't find what I wanted in the UK). The ones in France looked cheaper on the surface but were old nails when you saw them in the flesh. It took me 4 weekends of flying over, hiring a car, and looking (pre-arranged meetings through the broker) before I found what I wanted. By the time I got it sorted and back in the UK, I didn't save any money, but at least I had exactly what I wanted (and she's still bobbing about the Solent today).

Moral of the story...don't do it just to save money, because you won't.

 

[Erwin Swart]

bought my boat in spain and transported back to the netherlands by road.
as told before by others, make use of a return trip which saves you money. but's only attractive if tax is already paid for the boat.

good luck with hunting

 

[Zanziba]

Thanks for the replies. I do take the tax issue into account when looking and only really look at ones who are advertised as "Tax Paid". It would appear that this doesn't seem to be reflected in the purchase price oddly (i.e. non-tax paid don't seem to be cheaper).

I know that in the end I will see what is available on the market when I am ready. I do have the whole summer free if need be to sail back to the UK and it would be an adventure but it would also be a heck of a lot easier to find a UK or Dutch model.

Can I ask two dumb questions?

1) What modifications would an ex-charter require for the return journey? I assume they'll not include the life raft, flares etc?

2) What is a "return journey"?

 

[sarabande]

Trucks carrying freight from a supplier to a customer discharge the load, and then run back empty to their base. It makes a lot of sense to pick up - even - a small load for the return journey.

It's a process known as consolidation, and there's a whole website dedicated to it, but damned if I can find it at the moment.


EDIT


gottit !

http://www.shiply.com/shipments/boats.php

 

[Tranona]

Thanks for the replies. I do take the tax issue into account when looking and only really look at ones who are advertised as "Tax Paid". It would appear that this doesn't seem to be reflected in the purchase price oddly (i.e. non-tax paid don't seem to be cheaper).

I know that in the end I will see what is available on the market when I am ready. I do have the whole summer free if need be to sail back to the UK and it would be an adventure but it would also be a heck of a lot easier to find a UK or Dutch model.

Can I ask two dumb questions?

1) What modifications would an ex-charter require for the return journey? I assume they'll not include the life raft, flares etc?

2) What is a "return journey"?

Think you are misleading yourself. An ex charter boat will be subject to VAT on its purchase price - 22% in Greece. If you buy in Croatia you will have to import the boat into the EU and pay VAT at the point of import. For obvious reasons an equivalent VAT paid boat will be 15-20% more expensive.

Although generally well equipped ex charter boats need some upgrading. The liferaft will need servicing, you will probably need new jackets, flares, navigation equipment etc. I spent about £1500 on my boat for my return trip.

For road transport the best deals are from ports where new boats built in northern Europe are delivered to the Med and the trucks will be returning empty. However, the major movements are in the winter and spring and you may well find that marina fees waiting for an empty truck outweigh the savings.

 

[fireball]

I've little experience and my crew would be likewise unless I hired

Sailing around the outside should be quite a daunting task for someone with little experience - especially if the crew are equally inexperienced.

If you're looking at a 'Cheap' ex-charter then you will have to expect to replace a considerable amount - you may be lucky - but unless it's a private ex-charter it'll most likely have been kitted out with the basics and no more - and even then I've heard that the corporate ex-charter tend to have the knackered kit put on them - so basically you get hull & mast and expect to replace most of the rest!

 

[KellysEye]

>What modifications would an ex-charter require for the return journey? I assume they'll not include the life raft, flares etc?

Depends how safe you want to be. Most ocean sailing boats will carry a lifering, lifesling, and danbuoy all with lights and the first two with whistles. EPIRB, handheld GPS and radio. Full set of in date flares, many charter boats have a cut down pack.

Then you need to think of spares - oil, multiple fuel and oil filters, halyard, sheet, service packs for key kit including water pump, gaffer tape, self almagating tape, shackles, split rings, impellors, alternator, fuses, domestic and nav light bulbs, engine fan belts and a good toolkit. I could go on. We also carry rigging wire and Staloks, anchor winch spares and much much more down to tap washers. You also need a method to stop the hatch perspex falling out in a knockdown. I think you might be surprised how much breaks on a long passage.

And don't forget the costs of charts and pilot books.

 

[Tranona]

Sailing around the outside should be quite a daunting task for someone with little experience - especially if the crew are equally inexperienced.

If you're looking at a 'Cheap' ex-charter then you will have to expect to replace a considerable amount - you may be lucky - but unless it's a private ex-charter it'll most likely have been kitted out with the basics and no more - and even then I've heard that the corporate ex-charter tend to have the knackered kit put on them - so basically you get hull & mast and expect to replace most of the rest!

Actually Greek charter boats are relatively well equipped with liferaft, EPIRB, radios plus full sets of domestic gear. All this tends to come with the boat, but some may need replacing. My key additions were new lifejackets, Danbuoy, jackstays, AIS, Navtex and a PC chartplotter (in addition to a little Navman) a boom preventer and many of the spares and toolkit that KellysEye suggests. I had a professional skipper and he and I agreed on what I should add. Fortunately my boat had fairly new sails, but not all are so equipped. Of cour\se, i had the advantage of actually owning the boat from new so had a pretty good idea of its condition. Only regret is that two failed (new) autopilots and time constraints prevented me from completing the whole voyage.

 

[alant]

If I was to buy a 42' Bavaria in say Greece or Croatia, what is the best way to get it to the UK?

A) Get me plus 5 mates to sail back in a couple of weeks, non-stop? Cost circa £2000 for flights / food.

B) Have a lorry bring it back? That would be lorry, stepping mast etc.

Anyone got any ideas of good companies or cost of delivery and how it compares to sailing it back?

If its a Bavaria, it should be easy to send the keel by parcel post & truck the rest back!

 

[Zanziba]

Think you are misleading yourself. An ex charter boat will be subject to VAT on its purchase price - 22% in Greece.

Is this accurate? It's just some say on the advert "Tax Paid".

An example from Mallorca= http://uk.yachtworld.com/boats/2000/Bavaria-42-2314338/Spain

The ones in Croatia either say nothing or "Tax not paid"... am I to assume then that the ones that say nothing are tax not paid? I've been told that you pay tax on the purchase price (Not the new price) at the first port of call (Cyprus 16%).

I've been told my a chap in a marina in Ipswich last week that the VAT is also only payable on the HULL so if you go to the effort of getting two receipts (one for hull and one for all interior including sails, engine, fittings etc) then you only pay TAX on the hull receipt. He was adamant and said he did it no problem. Anyone know the truth on this?

 

[Zanziba]

If its a Bavaria, it should be easy to send the keel by parcel post & truck the rest back!

Oh, the humour. I suspect you laugh at Skoda's too !

 

[alant]

Oh, the humour. I suspect you laugh at Skoda's too !

I'll just skip that retort!

 

[Bobc]

I've been told that you pay tax on the purchase price (Not the new price) at the first port of call (Cyprus 16%).

I've been told my a chap in a marina in Ipswich last week that the VAT is also only payable on the HULL so if you go to the effort of getting two receipts (one for hull and one for all interior including sails, engine, fittings etc) then you only pay TAX on the hull receipt. He was adamant and said he did it no problem. Anyone know the truth on this?

You will need to pay EU VAT at the port ef entry into the EU.

The tax inspectors have the right to get an independent valuation if they think you are playing games, so I wouldn't suggest that you try to massage invoices to split the purchase price into hull & other stuff.

VAT is payable on the value of the boat and ALL of it's itinrary at the point of entry, including any costs incurred getting it there (so if you have it purchased liferafts, new sails, etc., and have shipped or employed a delivery crew, then this is also supposed to be accounted for and you pay VAT on all of it).

My advice would be to use the actual bill of sale as proof of value and not play silly beggers. Having the boat impounded and then having fees and fines woud not end-up as being cheaper.

The cheapest place in the Med to pay VAT is Malta (I think it's about 8-10%), so that would be your obvious entry point.