Repower time -- lifeboat take-out

[motthediesel]

So with a week or so to go, I still had another decision to make. I could either drive down to Jersey with my truck and get the crate loaded, or I could arrange for a freight forwarder to pick it up and truck it up to our place in NNY. My customs broker gave me a list of companies that I could contact to see about making that happen. I really didn't mind the drive to get it, but my wife and I run a small resort business here, and getting away in the summer is not easy for us.

I went through the list of trucking companies I was given, but I only had one shown any interest. So we exchanged a few emails regarding what kind of truck would need to be sent. As we have no loading dock, ordinarily a hydraulic tailgate trailer would be required, but as I have a loader/tractor with forks, a regular trailer would be fine for the trip. I thought -- great -- that should be a saving! Then I received their quote -- just under $3000 for the jaunt up from Newark -- needless to say, that was a HARD NO!

So a trip to Jersey it would have to be -- what further surprises were in store for us? Those will come in the next installment.

Tom

[tribologist]

??? and

[motthediesel]

With just a day or two remaining before landfall, we got another jump-scare with a notice from customs that our container was not cleared for entry. This was not any of our doing, but was a problem with one of the other shipments inside our container. This is another pitfall of "LCL" (less than container load) shipping -- you are relying on everyone else using "your" container to get everything right. There is nothing to do in this case but grip your rosary beads and hope for the best. Sure enough, soon word came that the problem had been resolved and our container was cleared into the US.

So now, we just wait to hear from the company that would be receiving and unpacking our container. That took a day our two after I could see that the old Hyundai Busan was at the pier in Newark. I had been told by my customs agent that there would be a few days delay, and that there would be charges by this company before I could pick it up. Also, there would be a 3 day window to get it, or there would be additional storage charges.

So, within a few days I received an email stating that my crate was ready for pickup, and the port and handling charges would amount to amount to just less than $400. Well, I thought, that figures -- it will cost the same money to pick up a crate with a fork truck in New Jersey as it would to ship it half way around the world. So, after paying, I asked for the address where I could go to get my crate loaded, and was told that I couldn't pick it up at their facility, I would need to go to the freight forwarder warehouse for that, and was given the name of another company to contact.

So I sent them an email with all my numbers and particulars. Now I was given an address, and then I was told I would need to come up with yet another near $400 to cover further "handling charges". At this point (with steam coming out of my ears) I contacted my customs agent to see if there was anything I could do to avoid this expensive run-around, and was told basically -- "no". She said the port pirates have you right where they want you, and as a small-time importer, there's really nothing you can do. They have an item that they know you want, and they will charge you what they think you will pay to get it.

In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?

(to be continued)

[tribologist]

Suspense!!

[motthediesel]

So, again we pay up, and now we are told that everything is in order, and are given our 3 day window to arrange to pick it up. We decide to leave on a Sunday afternoon, stay overnight in Stroudsburg PA, then make an early trip to Newark on Monday morning to get it. That all goes well, we arrive at the terminal around 10 AM. The traffic wasn't bad, and I marveled at Google Maps ability to route you around traffic tie-ups on the fly -- pretty amazing.

We enjoyed the view of the big city across the Hudson, neither of us had ever been this close to the river in NJ before. The warehouse building was ginormous -- and it took us a minute to realize that we had driven into the employee parking lot at first -- so many cars! After a bit of driving around we found our way to the shipping office door and went inside. It was confusing, but at last we found the correct window to line up for. After a bit, it was our turn to approach the clerk. I had a clipboard with me with copies of every bit of paperwork I had been given, plus two means of identification. No, problems, all in order -- but then I was asked, what kind of truck do I have? "Well, a pickup truck" says I. "Oh, then you can't be loaded at one of our docks, you will have to go to the "ramp door". Then I was told that there would be (I kid you not) an additional "ramp door charge" of $75! At this point I leaned into the window and asked the nice lady, in a very calm voice, to PLEASE guaranty that this would be my last surprise charge. She looked sheepish, and and said that she was very sorry, but that she could promise that my credit card was under not further threat from her -- whew!

So we drove around the huge building to door 89 -- the "ramp door" and waited. After a few minutes, a guy drove a fork truck down the ramp to go to a station where all the gas bottles were stored. He was changing to a new tank and I asked him if needed to report to anyone, as I was waiting for a crate to be brought down the ramp. His English was limited, but he said no -- it would be coming. Another trucker showed up soon, and we talked. He was there to have his load brought down the ramp as well, two tractors in his case. He was not as willing to just wait as we were (his time is money, I get it) so he walked up the ramp and disappeared into the building. I decided to follow, just to have a look-see.

It was dark and hot in there, and it was a real beehive of activity. Fork trucks racing around willy-nilly, some carrying crates and pallets, some pushing whole trains of pallets on the floor. Then there were floor sweeper machines running, sweeping up all the sawdust that was being ground off the bottoms of all those pallet trains -- crazy! The machines couldn't get everything though, so there were lots more guys sweeping detritus into dustpans too. Almost everyone looked like they were from Central America, and no English was being spoken. Wow, a very interesting view of our logistics economy.

I went back outside to cool off in the 85F New Jersey fresh air -- happy to be out of that inferno. Not long after, a fork truck came down the ramp with a big plywood crate, and he pulled up next to our Dodge. The driver and I compared our paperwork, and all the names and numbers matched. He expertly slid the crate into the back of our truck without any trouble. At that point, I was very happy to offer him a $20 bill for his help, because god knows he will never see a dime of that "ramp charge" and I'm sure his family in Guatemala or wherever will appreciate it.

Then it was back on the road for Northern NY, the unloading, the uncrating, and a final tally on costs.

To be continued:

[tribologist]

Best post in a long time!! So much to learn!

[DCatSea]

Brilliant post. Loved your descriptions of the accumulations of little things, and reams of paperwork involved.
Reminded me of the fun we had shipping a new Toyota 4x4 pickup to Yemen back in 1984, and the even more fun we had bringing it back to Baltimore 6 years later. No prizes for guessing which direction went off better; both had their moments, but one way was more expensive than the other.

[motthediesel]

The drive home was uneventful, with Cathy taking the helm of the big Dodge after a lunch stop in Monticello. I was tired when we got back, and I didn't feel like swapping out the bucket for forks on our old Ford tractor, so unloading would wait till tomorrow. That done the next morning, it was an easy matter to pick out the crate and put it on the floor of the shop.

The crate was well made, and I was interested to see that it was nailed together the old fashioned way, with a hammer. A bit of work with my favorite pry bar, and the top was off -- what a box of goodies!

engine crate.jpg

Then I set about removing the sides so I could get a real look at it.

engine.jpg

No surprises there, as it is the exact same engine as in our Kubota tractor. In this shot you can see the Denso gear drive starter -- tiny, but powerful -- those things are the bee's knees! I was astonished to see that my guy had included the prop shaft and prop -- and it was huge -- a 24"x12" LH -- yikes!

prop big.jpg

There was an Indian rice bag inside with all the instruments, wire looms, and gauges, including this VDO hour meter showing 10.5 hrs -- ha!

hour meter.jpg

There was some other things too, including the keel cooler, which I wasn't expecting to see. A word on that: virtually all lifeboat engines are rigged with keel coolers and dry exhausts, it just makes sense for the way they are used. (It also makes starting/testing then onboard ship much easier) To use this engine in my boat, I will need to add a seawater pump and a stand-alone heat exchanger. As luck would have it, I already have a NOS Sen-dure shell and tube unit, so I'm all set there.

OK, so in the final analysis, what did this all cost? Figuring the original price, plus sales tax (yes, Ebay collected that) the brokerage fees, shipping, port handling, handling again (grr) and fuel for the run there and back, the final cost was just about $7400. So well less than half the price of new, but there will still be money to spend on installation. In all, I'm not disappointed, and I was ready to have my wallet bled along the way, so that was no real surprise.

I'll have one more post to make on this, regarding my examination of the bits and pieces, and a surprise bit of information on the origin of the lifeboat that this engine was installed in, that's for next time.

Tom

[motthediesel]

I was curious as to what kind of lifeboat this engine may have come from, and how it wound up at a wreckers in India. So I did a sort of forensic examination of all the bits a pieces that came in the crate. The first thing I noticed was that the prop shaft was imperial sized, 1-1/4" diameter, the same as in my Albin in fact. Next, I was fascinated by the rather odd and home made looking air intake arrangement. It was largely made from white 2" PVC pipe and rubber plumbing sleeves, just like you would find in a US "Big Box" home improvement store.

Then I took a look at an unusual unit that was plumbed into the cooling circuit. It was a heavy black plastic drum with a rounded top and with a power cord coming out of it. The label identified it as a sort of block heater, and that it was to be used with 115v AC power -- hmmm, very North American. I began to be curious if it might have come off a US or Canadian ship, maybe even from the Great Lakes?

I had, over the course of our communications developed quite a friendly relationship with the seller in India, so I sent him an email asking if he knew what ship the lifeboat had come from. I said that I had a suspicion that it had come from North America, and that I was just curious. He got right back to me and said he wasn't sure off the top of his head, but that all the Beta 50's he has had came from "round lifeboats". He also said that he would try to find out exactly what boat it had come from. Well, I had never heard of such a thing, so I did a little research, and sure enough, there is such a thing -- they look a bit like orange flying saucers. I guess the advantage that they have is that they only need a single tackle to lower them.

I didn't think much more about it until a couple weeks later when I got another email from India, he had found a picture of the very lifeboat my engine had come from, and he sent it along.

dirty bird.jpg

Now THAT picture tells an interesting tale. The "ATP Innovator" was not a ship at all, but was a Gulf Coast oil rig, and quite an infamous one at that. Not as infamous as the "Deepwater Horizon" but another sad example of the downside of our fossil fuel addiction. In the case of the "Innovator" their inovation was to simply pump a chemical dispersant into a persistent crude oil leak, rather than take the more expensive path to fixing it. They were found out -- and then they were prosecuted into insolvency. The rig was shut down, and then subsequently scrapped. I believe it was broken up in Louisiana, so how "my" lifeboat wound up in India I can't say, maybe as deck cargo on another ship sent there for wrecking?

Anyway, that's the story of my new prime mover, at least for now. I'm accumulating the bits and bobs I'll need for the swap, and planning how to precede with the project. I hope I haven't bored anyone here, but I just felt it was a tale worth the telling.

Tom

[tribologist]

Interesting! If you had known it early, would that have simplified it? Its just returning to the USA.. might have been hard to prove?

[motthediesel]

Interesting! If you had known it early, would that have simplified it? Its just returning to the USA.. might have been hard to prove?

Well, I wouldn't pretend to understand all the rules for "duty" charges on second-hand machinery, but in my case, I wasn't charged that way anyway, so it would have made no difference. I suppose it might have mattered in terms of the EPA requirements, but there again, that was not a problem for me.

Tom

[tribologist]

Thank you so much for this post! So much to learn from it. I work quite often with a broker that does our importing ( i work for a large aerospace firm. Next time i have her on the phone i will discuss this ans see what i can learn. You ended up in the same trap as people do trying to be their own general contractor..

[motthediesel]

I would guess that I maybe could have done better at another port, but that's no certainty. Could I have chosen a Great Lakes port like Cleveland or Detroit? I doubt it, as these can't be reached by modern "full size" container ships. That's true even for Montreal, and then I would be dealing with importing into Canada as a foreign national, and then crossing back to the States -- that sounds like a nightmare! Boston or Baltimore would have been longer drives for us, and it's entirely likely that we would have been politely robbed there as well.

So, I would have to say that the whole deal was an "interesting" experience, and one that went just about like I thought it would. Would I do it again? I don't know that I would, but I'm not at all sorry that I took a chance on the deal. If for no other reason then that it will give me a great story to tell to other cruising boaters wherever we travel.

Tom