Florida Import

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Jim@sea

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Has anybody had experience of importing Bayliners from Florida. I am more worried about paying money "up front" and the seller choosing to go into liqiudation. Obviously I would be prepared to pay a 10% deposit for them to send the boat over here and pay "Bankers Draft" when I collected it. Or do you have to pay the whole lot "Up Front" and keep your fingers crossed.
 
Jim@sea said:
Has anybody had experience of importing Bayliners from Florida. I am more worried about paying money "up front" and the seller choosing to go into liqiudation. Obviously I would be prepared to pay a 10% deposit for them to send the boat over here and pay "Bankers Draft" when I collected it. Or do you have to pay the whole lot "Up Front" and keep your fingers crossed.
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Jim, this topic comes up fairly frequently on the forum. I don't think anyone has raised this particular risk before though. Assuming everything goes well with this part, have you checked the shipping costs, work to get CE marked, duty & VAT costs?
 
My biggest worry is the risk of my deposit or funds disapearing somewhere where I do not have the protection of the UK, not that it means much as I am the landlord of a business premises and my tenants, being a LTD, Co, went into liquidation owing people thousands of pounds, and carried on with another Ltd Co, and there were no checks by anybody as to where the money went.Surely in the UK whoever is selling a boat which is based abroad should be a "Licenced Deposit Taker" where deposits are protected. I am old enough to remember when "Fisher Boats" Went into liquidation and when "International Marine" in Manchester went into Liquidation. And others which I wont mention.
The problems regarding "CE" and VAT will be addressed once I have moved past the "Protection of my money stage"
Perhaps I am over cautious, but I want to find out for myself.
 
You are right to be cautious. If you just pay a deposit or the whole amount you will become an unsecured creditor if the supplier goes belly up - just as in the UK - and will lose your money.

You need to investigate ways of securing your money so that the vendor only gets it when the goods are delivered to you. This could be using an escrow account (where the funds are held by a third party) or by a letter of credit through the bank which the vendor can only draw on when (normally) he delivers the goods and title documentation to you or your shipper.

It is this sort of necessary hassle together with the high cost of shipping and getting CE mark plus VAT that generally makes it uneconomic to buy a boat individually in the States and ship it here.

Unless you are experienced in handling international trade, forget about it. That is why distributors exist - to do all that hard work for you and almost certainly you will find the saving illusory and the risks unacceptable. You will also be on your own as far as any warranty or back up support is concerned.
 
So let me just check I've got this right.

You give me 10% of the price for my boat. I then sent it 4,000 miles away to a foreign country where this dude who I've never met before assures me he'll give me a bankers draft for the balance just as soon as it arrives and he's happy with everything.

He promises me faithfully he won't just take the boat and do a runner.

There's two Hopes. Bob, and none whatsoever.

If you want to play with the big boys and become an importer you have to put your money where your mouth is and weigh the man in before asking him nicely to deliver it to your chosen shippers.

As has been said already with boats you have a battle on your hands to get it CE approved. Unless you have contacts or regularly travel to Florida anyway I wouldn't bother. And there are potentially so many hoops to jump through that I doubt it will be worth it. Even something as simple as the shore power will be all wrong.

I also can't see a manufacturer too keen on bypassing their native dealer network for the receiving country.

Which ever route you go, good luck.

Henry :)
 
a mate of mine is looking at this right now, he is using a uk based importer to do the deal, they reckoned on a $20k boat working out at about £20k + - a few pounds once the shipping, VAT and CE registration was taken into account

being as he was looking at bayliners at around $18k over there and the cheapest thing he could find of the same age over here was close on £29k

interesting point about what happens if it all goes wrong!!
 
I would have thought you'd struggle to have a boat landed and in the water for a £ to $ conversion. It usually works out around that for things which merely need shipping and taxes paying. I can imagine the CE work and the conversion work to make it work in the UK would take you well over a pound to dollar price tag.

As has been said already there are a number of potential pitfalls at every stage. I think the exchange rate is potentially fine at the moment, around 1.60 to 1. Not as good a 2 to 1 but better than the 1.4 we have seen.

Henry
 
From recent experience I believe the requirements of CE Marking are blown out of all proportion.

In my experience, other than the testing fee, which has now gone down in price, the work required was minimal and cost very little, maybe £400 on my 1997 42 foot Sea Ray.

Graham
 
GSL said:
From recent experience I believe the requirements of CE Marking are blown out of all proportion.

In my experience, other than the testing fee, which has now gone down in price, the work required was minimal and cost very little, maybe £400 on my 1997 42 foot Sea Ray.

Graham
Click to expand...

Out of interest, what work was required for the CE?
 
FARSCO said:
Out of interest, what work was required for the CE?
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Depends entirely on the individual boat. The three main issues are availability of design information, certification of the engines to EU standards and equipment. On some boats, particularly those that are also exported to Europe by the builders can be very straightforward. Others that were never built with EU standards in mind can need a lot of work - particularly if they are obsolete and technical information hard to come by.

Just as a guide - full certification from scratch (doing the design calculations, testing engines and systems etc) plus any changes to equipment could easily cost several £000s.
 
FARSCO said:
Out of interest, what work was required for the CE?
Click to expand...

From memory there were the fitting of small hatches over the fuel shut off valves, stickers on the two cabin hatches saying to keep closed when underway, fitting of a manual bilge pump that could be operated from the helm, stickers on some cupboards stating where the fire extinguishers were, and non return valves on the shower and basin sump pumps, nothing at all major.

I must qualify that by saying I checked before I purchased, the engines were already certified, and the boats were also exported to Europe.

Graham
 
You can get the boat imported, taxed, CE-ed and converted to identical to UK spec and still only pay around 50% of UK market value. I have done it a number of times, to the point where it now takes me 1.5 days' work to get the boat converted properly.

I got it down to $1000 for shipping a Bayliner 285 for example - but that was three or so years back, last time.

So-called import agents simply want a cut of that money and many companies / people with interests in the local industry try to make it as difficult as possible e.g. RYA charge for CE is many times what someone like CE Proof or IMCI would charge you for.

GSL's comments about what needs to be done for the CE is about right. Engine space fire extinguisher also needed (or discharge port, but that makes it cheap).

If you need help for $1000, try Gunnar Borrmeister of Mayday Watersports in Germany. He goes over regularly sourcing boats for people, and he will arrange everything else at reasonable costs. So you save a lot compared to the bigger agencies, but don't have to find the deals yourself. Just don't expect regular updates, but he seemed a good / experienced guy. He is not a surveyor, though, but can arrange it if needed.

Also, get the parts to convert the boat to UK spec / 240v at the same time and ship them with the boat. Shipping on the Tappan / Origo / whatever these days microwave is likely to be more than the cost of the unit itself. Bayliner will happily give you the list of parts to get; also, it's on their customer care website somewhere.

Check the engine is CE compliant and boat comes with outdrive rather than shafts.

To your original question. Your reference to a deposit makes it sound like you are buying a new boat. I don't have experience with this but would expect dealers not to be allowed to sell outside their territories. One way around it, I was told, was to say you are buying a model not available in the UK. In that case, simply include CE certification in the specification to get all you need.

For 2nd hand boat: Some US states have a document similar to our V5 for cars - get the owner to sign it and give it to you. Also, draw up bill of sale (use RYA template as a start) that includes HIN and other details and get that signed by the seller as well.

Above all, go over personally and inspect the boat, only hand over the money (or the 90% left after deposit) when you are happy and have access to the boat. The engine is your biggest investment... or issue, if not checked.

Fact is, you will be taking some risks along the way. Even if you own the boat in the US, lots of things can happen along the way - you can choose to insure the boat in the US and also during shipping.

Still, you will have some sleepless nights worrying about whether your boat is really on a ro-ro vessel somewhere crossing the Atlantic... :-)

Oh, and remember to have it winterised before the trip. And no illegal importing of cheap spare parts and fuel. Last hint, make sure the holding tank is empty before shipping...
 
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