She goes down
on her own bottom.
You take her.
Plenty of these boats are better run south than trucked, no permits, no escorts, no 12-foot beam problem. Owners on this coast need deliveries twice a year and the licensed captains who do it are found almost entirely by word of mouth.
What yacht delivery work pays on this coast
One way delivery work for licensed captains running boats between the Northeast and Florida, southbound in the fall and northbound in the spring, before hurricane season closes the northbound window on 1 June.
Deliveries are day rate work rather than a flat fare. Captains on this coast commonly quote in the region of 400 to 800 dollars a day depending on the ticket, the boat and the season, with a mate or deckhand adding roughly 200 to 300 a day where the boat needs one. A Northeast to Florida passage typically runs one to two weeks depending on whether she goes offshore or down the Intracoastal, and weather days normally count as delivery days because a captain sitting out a blow cannot take another job. Work out what a delivery pays at your rate.
Owners who want a boat run rather than trucked are looking for you specifically, and at the moment they find licensed captains almost entirely by word of mouth. Listing is free, your contact details are never published, and your ticket is checked by hand and marked with the date on your card.
One-way deliveries, twice a year
- Outside or down the ditch, agreed with the owner
- Multi-day passage, weather window governs
- Fuel, dockage and crew normally on the owner
- Flights home usually covered, settle it up front
- South in the fall, north before hurricane season
- A current USCG ticket for the tonnage
- Delivery experience on this coast
- To be acceptable to the owner’s underwriter
- References someone can actually call
- Seasonal Run does not employ you or pay you
- Rate and terms are between you and the owner
- Most underwriters want you named on the policy
- Nothing here is verified. Nor is the owner
Days on the water, at your rate
The number that decides everything is how many days she is under way, and that turns on the route and the boat. The defaults are a displacement passage, if she planes, put her real cruise in. Outside with crew you can run through the night. Down the waterway you are tied up by dark, which makes a November delivery a different job from the same run in May.
Weather days are the ones you sit out. Agree who pays for them before you leave, it is the single most common argument on a delivery.
Down the waterway the days are worked out from the daylight actually available on those dates along the coast, not a flat number. Change the month and watch it move. Mixed adds six hours of night running on the offshore legs.
Write down who pays for what
Every argument on a delivery is about something nobody wrote down. Weather days are the big one, and there is no standard: some delivery contracts bill every day sat out at the full day rate, others charge nothing for weather at all. Whichever way you do it, the time to settle it is now.
This builds a plain sheet you can copy into an email or print and sign. It is a record of what the two of you agreed, not a legal document and not legal advice. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored, it is worked out in your browser and disappears when you close the tab.
Seasonal Run is not a party to any of this. We do not employ captains, we do not handle payment and we hold no money. This sheet is a record of what you and the owner agreed between yourselves. If the delivery is worth enough to argue about, it is worth having a lawyer look at the terms.
The spring run is the one with a deadline
Southbound clusters into October and November. Northbound into April and May, and that one is not preference. Hurricane season opens 1 June and many hull policies key their restrictions to it, so owners need the boat north before then whether or not they have found anyone.
Which is why captains who work this corridor are booked well before the window opens.
Two things worth checking first
Where you have to watch the water
The places on the waterway that every captain who works this route already knows about, and the shorter list of those where arriving on the right tide is the difference between going through and sitting there. Give it the run and it says which are on it and roughly which day you reach each.
Does she fit under
Four gates between New England and Miami, one of them with no way round it. Put her air draft in, masthead to waterline, plus the aerial and the wind gear, and it tells you which ones are a problem before anybody agrees a route.