Why, several reasonably minded friends have asked, would we be pondering how to ship our soon-to-be new boat from Mexico to Seattle?

“Doesn’t a boat ‘ship’ itself?” one asked.

“How about piracy?” another suggested.

“Duh. By sailing it back,” a smartypants friend responded.

Oh, to reside in the blissfully sane, sensible mind of
a non-boater. I vaguely remember those days.

That was back when there were no decisions to make about whether to take a trip to Europe or invest in a new radar system, when a perfectly acceptable summer pursuit—like, say, hiking or cycling—other than sailing every waking minute and weekend was possible.

The first summer Marty and I were together, I was thinking about doing the annual STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride, a 200-mile, two-day trip. Marty gamely said he’d do it with me. I should remind him of that now. Suggesting we sacrifice about two months of prime sailing weekends in spring and summer to train for a long distance bike ride would now be met with speechless disgust at such a ridiculous notion.

This summer’s been a sailing write-off, pretty much. So we’re anxious to get the boat up here as soon as possible and start sailing it, particularly since as soon as the sale closes, we own a sailboat that’s living in its own $510-a-month pad hundreds of miles away.

That’s easier said than done, naturally, since nothing involving a boat can possibly be uncomplicated or inexpensive. There are three main options for getting the boat to Seattle: sailing it up the coast, shipping it by truck or transporting it on a barge. Shipping by truck will likely cost around $11,000, including decommissioning and recommissioning (removing and reattaching the mast and rigging), and shipping by boat likely somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000, with the possibility of a last-minute discount if there’s space available.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have turned my nose up at that Costco membership. Bulk ramen and canned tuna could become frequent menu items this winter in the Three Sheets household.

I’d love to save the cost and sail the boat up the coast—at least in theory—but Marty still has that niggling thing known as a day job that prevents him from taking off the month or so it would take to sail it back. Sailing to Seattle via Hawaii would be preferable, but that would take at least twice as long.

And there’s the trip itself. It’s ominously known as the Baja Bash, as opposed to the pleasant Baha Ha-Ha, the annual cruisers rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas that travels the right way along the coast: down. By contrast, sailing north is a grueling, uphill slog upwind through often heavy seas. Here’s one crew’s account of their trip from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego in May, far from the worst weather season to make the trip, with descriptions of 28-knot winds and six-foot waves. Fun! Sign me up!

Something tells me the Bash might not be the best choice for our first big offshore trip together. We’re pretty solid as a couple, but why subject ourselves to that shared misery? Even if we were willing to make the trip, we’d have to wait until next spring for a weather window, and that’s far too long until our boat is in Seattle.

So that leaves trucking and transporting by boat. Naturally, there are no ships transporting boats from San Carlos, so we’d have to move the boat to either La Paz, across the Sea of Cortez, or Manzanillo, a much farther trip down the coast. Since it’s impossible to get boat insurance for sailing offshore during hurricane season, we’d have to find a shipping date past the start of November.

If cost weren’t a factor, shipping by boat would be my first choice. The mast doesn’t have to be taken down and the boat moved from a truck in Mexico to one in the U.S., so it seems less risky. The process for shipping by boat through one of two companies providing the service from Mexico, Dockwise Yacht Transport, involves a complex series of steps that help explain the heinous cost.

I never thought I’d find the intricacies of yacht shipping interesting, but (god help me) I actually do. The process starts with mapping out on paper and by computer how the boats will be arranged on the shipping vessel. On shipping day, the vessel is submerged while owners load their boats on. Divers are sent down to place temporary supports under the boats. After the vessel is lifted out of the water, the supports are welded onto the vessel deck and tension-held to the boat hulls. To provide additional support, belts are attached between the boats’ bollards and the vessel deck.

About a week later, your boat magically arrives in Nanaimo, B.C. (neither company ships to U.S. ports; something to do with waterfront union hassles).

At this point we’re leaning toward shipping by truck, both for flexiblity and cost reasons, with the possibility of a last-minute deal on vessel shipping as a solid Plan B. The one other pressing question is whether to truck the boat now or wait until November, when hurricane season’s over and Marty can take a week or two off, to cruise in the Sea of Cortez before moving the boat north.

Ah, choices. I have to admit, this is one quandary I don’t mind dealing with.

About Deborah Bach

Deborah Bach is the editor and co-founder of Three Sheets Northwest. She is an avid sailor and long-time professional journalist. You can find Deborah aboard Three Sheets, an Island Packet 38, with her husband Marty and their cat Lily.

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