Re: Shipping info...

Posted by Wilke Nelson on Sep 13, 2006

Yes. I actually just shipped an entire assembled SailRig from No. Virginia to a friend on a tiny island off the Maine Coast for $300, which turns out to be a lot more bizarre an item to ship, as far as the conventional shippers were concerned, than a single kayak. In any case, I became a bit of an expert and here is my advice:

- The conventional shippers, UPS, Fedex, DHL offer to ship odd items like kayaks, but will want it "palletized" etc. Based on my research and various threads I found on the net, even then you stand a 50/50 chance of your boat being damaged enroute. There is also a shipper, if you google them, Sports Express I believe, that specializes in things like Kayaks, but there prices were about the same as I recall. - The qoute I got from UPS was $500 plus cost of insurance for packing and shipping. You would probably have to pay less given that the Sailrig was a collection of odd parts that all had would have had to have been palletized. - Because that was far more than I wanted to spend, I went with a service called Uship.com. I can't speak highly enough about the positive experience I had. I went to www.uship.com and posted a description of the item I wanted to ship, to where, when, and how much I was prepared to pay. Then, a variety of shippers bid on the request, just like Ebay. I got a response in a day from someone who met my price, which was $200 less than UPS. He happened, as it turned out, to live nearby the town in Maine and arrived, one week later, to ship the SailRig which he took great pains to pack safely on a trailer and hand deliver to its destination. There was only one other item in the shipment, so no chance of a load shifting and damaging the Rig. I couldn't have been happier.

As they say, my experience is no indication of what yours might be as, like Ebay, there is a bit of a Wild West element to Uship....though my shipper did offer insurance and a guarantee. However, as with Ebay, every shipper is rated by their past customers and you can get a great sense of their calibre that way.

So, I would give it a try...www.uship.com

In Response to: Shipping info... by Alan Speakman on Sep 12, 2006

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