What are the odds of a ski being damaged in shipping?

Hi folks,

I'm thinking of buying a Pulse and having it shipped from SA to Canada. It seems that any damage during shipping will be on me to fix. I don't have a good sense of how high the risk of shipping damage is. Is it rare or does it happen all the time? Does anyone have some experience to share in this arena?

My other hesitation is that I'd be buying a boat that I have never padded or even seen in person.... I know this is ill-advised but, it looks great on paper and is a good bit more affordable than the Thinks and Epics that are available locally.

Thanks!

Years ago I had a fiberglass kayak shipped via freight from Oregon to Georgia and it was wrapped so well that nothing happened to it. If the shipper does his job well you should be fine. Insurance doesn't cost much so for me it was worth it. If it was destroyed I would have received all of my money back.
Wesley sells a lot of surfskis and he uses a shipping company that puts the skis on a trailer pulled behind a truck. Never heard if any problems.

As for buying a ski without trying it, I say if you have none in your area it's worth a try. I'm sure you've done your research so you know if you can fit in it or not. Hope all goes well.

You will be taking a chance if not boxed properly. I repair skis for a living and the living gets all the better with self imported skis. 50mm 10ton ratchet straps do a wonderful job of holding down a 11kg fragile composite ski, I think they do it up by sound, when the cracking gets too loud they stop.

I suggest you talk to Carbonology and ask them how they package things for shipping. I'm sure they could send you some photos of previous export boats. Just be aware that a single ski may well be shipped individually in a crate, box or tube, rather than in a container full of skis.

Last year we ordered two skis from Stellar. They were shipped from outside Shanghai to the port, carried on two ships, one to Korea, then onto Japan, and then moved to the warehouse in Okinawa for us to collect them. They were transported in a wooden box with racks inside, one above the other. They were gently secured to the racks with complimentary straps from Stellar (nice touch!). The skis weighed 15kg each, the total weight for skis and box was 140kg! The box was 7 meters long and about 1.5 m square. It was so solid that I recycled a lot of the wood to make a verandah on my house!

It can be a nerve racking experience, but it's so nice getting to unwrap a brand new ski! Good luck

That box looks solid!
From the info that Carbonology gave the shipping company when they were getting the quote, I know that the ski is "wrapped", 20kg (10or11kg ski) with the following dims 6.1x.6x.5m.
It sounds like this is probably a pretty risky shipping situation... I know one guy who has done this. His ski had minor damage and he said the shipping company was "useless at taking any responsibility". I'm currently inquiring if he got the insurance, but had trouble claiming it or if he didn't have insurance.

If it not boxed, all bets are off, take your chance!
As long as you have a reputable repairer in your area you should be fine. Just ask them to send you some gelcoat for the repairs, helps a lot for the colour matching, 500ml should do the trick and some for the seam.

I am from South Africa and have just moved to Sydney Australia. I brought my FENN surfski in my container - it was bubble wrapped (very well) and arrived with no damage. Why don't you contact Fenn in South Africa they transport surfski's all over the world. FENN are brilliant boats

You should contact Ocean Paddlesports in Costa Mesa California. They are bringing in a whole container of Carbonology skis for a great price. I believe I saw that they were going to be selling the carbon/hybrid layups for something like $1,950 US. Add another couple hundred dollar for transport to Canada, and I doubt that you'd be able to beat that price if you have a box built for the ski, have it shipped, pay duties, etc.

Roadtrip!

I believe Jude at Huki has had good success shipping surfskis in "sonotubes".

LeeAnne, I've currently got an elite sl, which I love downwind - it's affectionately named the Grand Banana. But I'm a light weight (150lb - 67kg) and on the flats, I've got a foot and a half of bow out of the water. So I'm pretty interested in a shorter boat built with someone lighter in mind.
I checked prices with OPS (a Cali road trip would be nice!) but unfortunately they aren't quite that cheap (hybrid is $2900us, top layup is $4000us).

I'm pretty on the fence. Part of me thinks I should just keep paddling the sl, it's a good boat and was nice and cheap. Pursuing this will definitely hurt my speed/money spent on boat ratio...

I actually went back and checked the post from Ocean Paddlesports to our yahoo groups forum Whatcom Paddlers. The post was from December 7th of last year, exactly 2 months ago, and they did list a price of $1,450 for the hybrid Carbonology skis. I also went to their website and saw a price of double that listed. What gives? Maybe the price was for this special container shipment coming in, so you may want to call or e-mail them to see what gives in this huge price discrepancy.

$1450.00 for a new ski doesn't make sense. Can't buy a newer second hand ski for that price.