She fits on a trailer. So whose trailer?

Most of this site is written about wide boats, because a twelve foot beam is where the paperwork and the money are. A nineteen or twenty-three foot centre console is a different job, and an easier one. Nearly everything that makes an oversize move complicated simply does not apply to her.

That is worth saying plainly, because owners of small boats read about oversize permits and escort vehicles and assume the whole business is harder and dearer than it is. It is not. Under the legal width she travels like any other load on the interstate, and the only real question left is the one most owners have never had to think about: who is supplying the trailer she rides on, and is it right for her hull.

Inside the legal width, almost all of it goes away

The federal maximum width on the interstate system is 8 feet 6 inches. Under it, a load is just a load. Over it, every state on the route wants an oversize permit, and the rungs climb from there. The difference between those two worlds is larger than most people expect:

• No oversize permit, in any state. Nothing to apply for, nothing to pay for, and nobody waiting on a state office to come back before she can move.
• No escort vehicle. Escorts start around twelve feet and are a real cost on a wide move. They are not in this conversation at all.
• No fixed route. An oversize permit names the roads. A legal-width load goes whichever way the driver likes, which means it can take the fast way and divert around weather or a closure without anybody re-issuing anything.
• No daylight-only restriction. This is the big one for timing. The reason a wide boat takes three days in November and two in May is that she may only travel in daylight, and November has about eleven hours of it. A legal-width load has no such limit, so the calendar stops mattering nearly as much.
• Weekends and holidays are fine. Several states close to oversize traffic at weekends and around major holidays. That restriction is on oversize loads, not on her.

So the seasonal squeeze that runs through the rest of this site is softer for you. It still exists, because the carriers and the yards are busy in the same weeks whatever they are hauling, but you are not also fighting a permit office and a daylight window.

8 feet 6 is exactly the line, and the brochure is not the measurement

Here is the trap. A great many popular boats are built to exactly 8 feet 6 inches on the beam, because that is the number that lets a buyer tow her home without a permit. Sitting right on the line is fine until somebody measures her properly.

The figure that governs is the widest point on the boat as she sits on the trailer, including the rubrail and anything bolted to her sides: rod holders, a boarding ladder, fender brackets, trim. The brochure beam does not include the rubrail. One inch of rubrail either side turns a legal load into an oversize one, and with it come permits in every state on the route, a named route, and daylight-only travel.

It is not a disaster if she is over, it is simply a different and dearer job, and the trip planner will tell you which one you are in. But find out before you take quotes rather than after, because a quote given for a legal load and a load that turns out to be oversize are not the same quote, and the difference is discovered at a weighbridge rather than in an email.

If you are guessing, the yard can put a tape across her in five minutes. Ask for the widest point including everything bolted on, and the height from the ground with her sitting on the trailer she will actually travel on.

Whose trailer does she ride on?

For a wide boat this barely comes up, because she goes on a carrier's lowboy and that is that. For a trailerable boat there are three real cases and they cost different amounts.

What to ask a carrier bringing their own trailer

• Does the trailer actually fit this hull? Not every trailer suits every boat. Bunks and rollers support a hull differently, and a deep vee, a flat-bottomed bay boat and a stepped hull all want different things. Give them the make, model and length, and ask them to tell you how she will sit.
• Who loads her, and where? A small boat usually goes on at a ramp or with a yard's forklift rather than a travel lift, which is cheaper and quicker but needs somebody competent there. Agree who is doing it and who is paying for it, at both ends.
• Is she strapped properly for a long road? Transom straps, a bow tie-down separate from the winch strap, and support under the hull rather than hanging on the keel rollers. Ask how she will be secured, and look at it before she leaves.
• What is their USDOT number, and is the authority active? A carrier hauling for hire across state lines needs operating authority. You can check it yourself for nothing on the federal SAFER site in about a minute. On this site a USDOT that has been checked against the public federal record says so on the card, with the date it was checked.
• What does their cargo cover actually pay on a hull? Having cargo insurance and having cover that pays out on your boat are different sentences. Ask for the limit and ask what it excludes.

A load each way is worth asking for

This is the thing most owners never think to raise, and it is the single biggest lever you have on the price.

A carrier running the fall corridor goes south loaded and comes home empty. That empty run north costs them fuel, tolls and days, and it is built into what they quote you. If you can give them a load in the other direction, or even just the plausible prospect of one, you have taken their worst leg away, and that is where a rate comes down.

Owners stumble into this more often than they realise. Moving one boat south in the autumn and bringing a different one back in the spring is a round trip. So is going south yourself and having a friend's boat come north on the same trailer. If there is anything at all coming back the other way, lead with it when you ask rather than mentioning it at the end, because it changes who is interested, not just what they charge.

The same logic is why several boats leaving the same water in the same week is cheaper per boat than any of them moving alone. If you are in a marina or a club, it is worth asking who else is going.

When you leave a move on this site you can say that something is coming back the other way, and it goes to carriers as part of the job rather than as an afterthought. Leave the move.

Four things that do not get easier just because she is small

1. Your insurance still may not cover her on a truck

   This catches small-boat owners exactly as often as it catches everybody else. A good many policies exclude the boat entirely while she is being moved commercially, and several that do cover it cap the cover at a radius from your home port. Two hundred, three hundred and five hundred miles are all common limits, and this run is over a thousand.

   Ask your underwriter in writing whether she is covered on a truck and out to what distance, then ask whoever moves her what their cargo cover pays. If it is your own trailer and a hired driver, that is a different question again.

2. Photograph her, all the way round, at both ends

   Before she is loaded and again when she lands. The hull sides, the running gear, the lower unit, the gelcoat, and anything already marked. That is the entire dispute process in this trade, and the people who do it never need it.

3. Strip her, and do not assume small means nothing flaps

   Canvas, bimini, covers, antennas and flag masts all come off. At highway speed anything that can flap will tear itself and then the boat. Bilge dry and the plug out, batteries off, tanks low rather than full, and everything loose below and stowed. An outboard wants to be trimmed down and supported rather than hanging on the trim rams for twelve hundred miles.

4. Book both ends, even if neither is a travel lift

   A ramp needs somebody with a tow vehicle, and a forklift needs the yard to be open and expecting her. It is less of a production than a travel lift but it still has to be arranged, and the yards are busy in exactly the weeks you want them.