Shipping to Alaska

C

cwthayer

New member
I am in the process of purchasing a 25 C-Dory. I need to ship it from Seattle to Anchorage. I have a quote from TOTE for almost 5K. Any other experiences or recommendations?
 
We used the State Ferry last year when we bought our 22' Cruiser. I believe it was a littler more than $3K to get it from Bellingham to Whittier. It was a really nice way to ship the boat, and the ferry staff seemed to keep a nice eye on it while it was in transit.
 
Here is a bit from a 2011 trip he was making.

Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:45 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
Joe has it spot on. This is the 3rd CD I have towed to Alaska.
The border gestapo at Sumas gave me a little grief but let me go after reading all of the paperwork I had.
We are in Williams Lake, BC tonight. Took a little time to stop at the CD factory but no one there. Damn the luck.
Click to expand...

Yes it is Jack in Alaska, and I just went back through the last months posts, and it was not there, so he made the last delivery more than a month ago.

I believe he is on delivery 11 or so, but check with him.

In the search I put in Alaska AND trailer, and he was on page 2 of tghe responses.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon
 
For our 22' cruiser we used the state ferry from Bellingham to Skagway. Shipped as an unaccompanied vehicle - we just met the ferry in Skagway to pick up the boat. Worked well and was the least expensive option we could find at the time.
 
Yes it is me. Made my last delivery late April in Wasilla of a 25' Cruiser for a $2100 donation for fuel.
I have driven the Alaska Hyw. 79 times w/o any problems. Towed up six C-Dories and an aluminum 26'.
I believe my Ak. Hyw. runs are over as my 1st mate is getting tired of the trip. We are flying to Az. and back this coming season, unless I can convince her to fly and let me drive. I just love that trip.
 
You might also want to check the schedule(s) and prices for the 'barge (e.g. Nordland?). Year's ago I shipped a 25' Boston Whaler from Seattle to Naknek (King Salmon) AK and it worked very well.

Best,
Casey&Mary
 
The AK Ferry (Alaska Marine Highway System) is subsidized and you won't likely find a better price, although you will probably find much more convenient shipping.

AML/Lynden Transport is probably your most convenient, but will cost more.

However, I have started moving boats around by putting them up for bid on uship.com. I was pretty wary of this at first, but we have gotten stellar service from everyone who has delivered anything for us, and the costs have been about 20% of the shipping quotes we've gotten. That's not 20% less, that 20% of.

We had a 25' Safe Boat delivered from New Jersey to Seattle (granted, that's not AK, but it's just a recent example), and got a bunch of shipping quotes all in the neighborhood of $10k. We put it up for bid on uship and got it delivered within a few days for about $1200. I'm sure results vary, but so far, we've been very happy with uship and I wouldn't go paying full price until you've at least given uship a shot.
 
I was recently quoted $2/mi by Cory with Sharps. That's in the neighborhood of $5-6K from east coast to PNW. I can't personally justify that.

jd
 
We used Uship to transport our boat from Michigan to Texas. The first person had vehicle trouble so we had to go with another shipper. We were very pleased with the service and price. His name on Uship was Billie.

Martha
 
Having pulled 5 boats from Washington to Fairbanks over the years I would much prefer the highway route and doing it myself, but that option may not be available or may be onerous to some. If the latter is the case I'd have it put on the ferry at Bellingham and pick it up in Haines, particularly if you want it for this year. If its a next year deal have Jack bring it up on his annual northbound spring migration.
 
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