Three days south.
Fly home.
Do it again.
Boat owners on this coast move twice a year and most of them cannot find anyone. The work is one-way and it comes in clusters, which means four or five runs inside one window instead of waiting on the phone. Bring your own rig or drive theirs; owners here are looking for both.
What boat transport driving work is, and what it pays
Seasonal one way work moving boat owners’ boats between the Northeast and Florida. Boats go south from roughly October to November and north from April to May, and the runs cluster inside those weeks rather than trickling through the year.
Two arrangements exist and owners here are looking for both. In the first you drive the owner’s own truck and trailer one way and fly home, and rates are quoted as a day rate, commonly in the region of 350 to 600 dollars a day, with the flight normally on the owner. In the second you bring your own rig and authority and quote the job all in. A southbound fall run is usually three days on the road rather than an overnight, because a permitted oversize load may only travel between sunrise and sunset, so the trip is longer than the mileage suggests and should be priced that way. Work out what a run pays at your own rate.
Listing here is free, there is no commission, and your phone number is never published. An owner sees where you are based, what you run and when you are free, and when one of them wants you, we ask you first.
Two ways to take it
Some owners have the truck, the trailer and the permit and need somebody to make the trip. Others have none of that and want the whole job carried. They are different arrangements with different paperwork, and owners rarely know which one they want until someone tells them. Say which you do and we will only put you in front of the right ones.
- Fly to the boat, drive it one way, fly home
- Owner’s truck, owner’s trailer, owner’s permit
- The owner’s insurance has to answer for you, settle that first
- Flights normally on the owner, agree it up front
- Your truck, your trailer, your authority, your cargo cover
- You pull the permits and quote the job all in
- Give us your USDOT number and we check it against the public FMCSA record
- An active authority shown on your listing is the only verified thing on this site
- Class A CDL for the rigs most of these boats need, check the combined weight rating, and a clean record
- Comfortable towing wide, tall and long
- Carrying under your own authority: active USDOT and cargo cover that suits the hull value
- Willing to work inside a permit
- References someone can actually call
- Seasonal Run does not employ you or pay you
- Rate and terms are between you and the owner
- Nothing here is verified except a USDOT number. Nor is the owner
- Both windows are short. Being visible in August is the whole game
Know before you answer the ad
A fall run is three days on the road, not an overnight, because a permitted load only moves between sunrise and sunset. Put your own day rate in and see what the trip is actually worth.
Days on the road are worked out from the daylight actually available on those dates along the corridor. Change the month and watch it move, that is the part most people get wrong.
What listing gets you, and what it costs
Most of the outfits working this coast are one or two people who would rather be hauling than doing this bit. If that is you, here is the whole arrangement in four lines.
- Your phone number is not on this website. It is not on a listing, not in a search result, and not in anything this site can be asked for. An owner sees where you are based, what you run and when you are free. When one of them wants you, we ask you first and you decide whether to answer. That is the difference between this and being somebody's lead.
- It costs nothing and there is no commission. We do not take a cut, we do not handle the money, and we do not want to. What you charge is between you and the owner, and we never find out what it was.
- No exclusivity, no contract, nothing to cancel. Keep your own site, your own customers and every other arrangement you have. Ask us to take your listing down and it is off the same day.
- Your USDOT gets checked, and the card says so. We look the number up against the public federal record and put the date on it. Most transport sites show no authority at all, if yours is current, that is worth having stated next to your name.
We are not a broker. The sites that come up first when an owner searches for boat transport are mostly lead resellers with no trucks, no USDOT and a nationwide page for every state. This is a list of people who actually do the work, and the owner talks to you directly.
Two windows, and they are short
Southbound clusters into October and November. Northbound into April and May, and that one has a hard edge, hurricane season opens 1 June and a lot of hull policies key their restrictions to it, so the boats have to be north before then.
Drivers who work this corridor commit their windows by the end of August for the fall and the end of February for the spring. If you want the runs, that is when to be visible.