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BOATING is again growing in popularity after the setback which
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it encountered following the imposition of VAT a couple of years ago, which is good news for hauliers who specialise in carrying yachts and boats. But there is more to boat haulage than meets the eye.
It needs specially designed equipment of course. But more than that, it requires a sympathetic, knowledgeable approach by management and drivers alike. Boat owners are notoriously sensitive about the people who handle their rather expensive craft.
Nor is this haulage activity confined to moving boats about the United Kingdom. I was surprised to find that it is cheaper and more convenient for them to be transported by road to Continental destinations rather than sailing them to their overseas port. All this became plain when I visited the Portsmouth-based boat haulier, Ken Brown Ltd, which is not only a haulage concern but builds boats as well. This is the firm which moved Mr Heath's Morning Cloud recently using one of the trailers which the principal, Ken Brown, designed for the purpose. The company's. activities are basically divided into three main functions. Locally, it takes craft out of the water in the autumn, stores them at its boatyard for the wmt and returns them to their tive element in the spri . Throughout the UK, it ansports new boats fro builders for delivery t toe purchaser wherever Might require .it and t es others from the wa Nide to builders for rep or refit. Fina , it operates an intern ipnal boat haulage servic to Europe and Scandinavia carrying new boats to overseas buyers or to foreign waters for charter.
Its fleet comprises two artic tractive units, a Bedford KH and a Mercedes 1418, and a twoaxle rigid Ford D1411 with another Bedford tractive unit being rebuilt to enter service shortly. Matched with the tractive units are two semi-trailers, one 33ft and the other 45ft long. There are also two drawbar trailers, an hydraulically operated self loader plated for 13 tons and a small trailer of 3 tons capacity. The firm also uses a Range Rover for hauling small uk craft and which acts as an escort vehicle with the appropriate signboards on Continental runs.
The Mercedes and 45ft trailer operates mainly under the Motor Vehicles (Authorisation of Special Types) General Order 1973 with abnormal indivisible loads, both at home and overseas. An example of this might be the proposed movement of a Fisher yacht, based on a ketch-rigged Baltic trawler, to the port of .Athens. This craft is 37ft long with a beam of 12ft and weights 14 tons. This quite large vessel is to be carried to Brindisi where it will be put into the water by crane and then sailed across the Adriatic.
The low-loader trailer has been rebuilt by Ken Brown so that the keel of the boat being carried fits into a well and Acrow jacks have been installed along the side-members to position at right angles and support the vessels along each side.
The KH Bedford is fitted with a drawbar attachment and often operates with the self-loading trailer. This is an interesting vehicle designed and built by Mr Brown.
It is a six-wheeled axleless trailer with removable cross-members. The suspension comprises a hydraulic jack to each wheel and the base of the vehicle can be lowered to ground level. Picking up a boat for transport is simple. The trailer is set at the required height and backed up to the boat. The cross-members are removed 'progressively as they reach the blocks supporting the vessel and, using the trailer as a jack and erecting the Acrow jacks as required to support the hull, the boat is transferred on to the trailer. The process is reversed for placing the boat on the ground for storage. The rigid Ford carries boats on its rebuilt frame chassis. This is . being modified so that it provides a well for the keel which involves repositioning the propshaft to one side. Carrying one vessel, the rigid vehicle can also tow the smaller 3-ton trailer, also carrying a boat, to form a road train. This vehicle, too, is often used for overseas carryings.
Accommodating the keel of the boat being carried in a central well goes some way to restricting the height of the load both to comply with overseas fourmetre height requirements and for transport in this country. Despite this, it is necessary to have careful regard for routeing the vehicle to its destination, especially in the UK. During the years, Mr Brown who looks efts much of the office an paperwork, has become al expert on appropriat routes. With overlang transport of boats ti Scandinavia, Spain, Ger many, Majorca, and thi Mediterranean not unusual it is necessary to keep careful eye on the permi position. Though permits are no needed for some destina tions — Scandinavia in par ticular — and not require( for transport to boat show: or boating events, they an required for overland trans. port to many destination: for boat delivery. Fortunately, Mrs Brown tolc me, the company is an to obtain sufficient permits for its immediatE requirements.
The main problem is back loading; these are few and far between.
One of the difficulties about obtaining back loads of boats coming or returning to this country is the critical timing which is involved in ordering cranage. Keeping appointed times of arrival at overseas ports in order to secure ordered cranage and then allowing a reasonable time to place the boat in the water makes it difficult to arrange for the vehicle to arrive at another point to keep a further cranage appointment to lift the return load vessel from the water.
It is this operation, too, which influences the choice of the driver for this specialised service. I was told that the average road haulage driver normally is too engrossed in getting from one place to another and back again. This makes him unsuitable for boat haulage because the terminalwork often calls for patience. Thus, the job calls for a special breed of driver who is
prepared to suffer the often unaccountable delays attendant on boat haulage and who is in sympathy with the sensitivity of the boating fraternity.
This aspect was firmly demonstrated when I watched a couple of craft being returned to the water at Camber Dock, Portsmouth, recently.
The conditions here, adjacent to the Isle of Wight car ferry, are congested to say the ,least. To see Ken Brown's vehicles, each loaded with an expensive boat, manoeuvre into position for the crane to sling it high in the air and lower it gently into the water was .exciting to the onlooker but nerve-wracking to the two owners standing by.
More hazardous was the operation of stepping the mast for one false move would send several feet of timber through the bottom of the boat.
However, the company hopes to be able to eliminate the haulage from boat yard to quayside shortly by converting the premises it has acquired next to Camber Dock.
An instance of the frustrating delays which can occur was provided by the job entailing transport of a pilot boat from Moody's Swanwick marina to Halmatic at Havant.
Though due to be loaded about 1 lam, the pilot boat was not brought out of the water till about lpm tying up the vehicle for the best part of a day though it was scheduled to do the job by lunchtime.
Its schedule had included loading a large vessel for Scandinavia with ferry appointments to keep during the following days.
Ken Brown told me that there were not more than about four properly qualified boat hauliers in the South of England, though there were many others who purported to be able to do the job.