MARLOW YACHTS

Port Action | From There to Here

The excitement builds. You have spent the past year with a lot of weighty decisions. Your first and most important one was to decide on a Marlow Explorer. Your next big decision was the power choice - which engine's performance will fit your cruising style? You have spent considerable time cruising boat shows looking at all the hundreds of electronic and technological products available for yachts. How could there possibly be that many and are they really necessary! Next, what about the interior design and decor of the yacht? All throughout this, you have benefited from the guidance and experience of your yacht broker in conjunction with Marlow Explorer Yachts. You may have even visited the factory in Asia and seen your yacht under construction, a very exciting event. So now, with all the major decisions in motion and your yacht nearing completion, you're feeling confidant about your choices and are very anxious to take delivery. You receive word that she has been shipped and approximately 30 days later she will be off loaded at the port. What exactly happens between the factory and the boat yard? It becomes a highly orchestrated series of events!

The completed yacht, after final QC inspection, is thoroughly cleaned inside and out. All loose items shipped with the yacht are secured to ensure no movement at all for the 12,000 miles trip. The interior floors are covered and the windows and superstructure are covered with a tough 3M product to protect the finish. The stainless steel rails and stanchions are wrapped with a type of heavy plastic wrap to maintain the mirror finish. The decks are covered with thin plywood to protect the teak. After all, this yacht is traveling on the deck of a large ship exposed to all the elements without benefit of a bath for over a month. Shipping space has been secured and the date is established. Now the yacht must get to the port of departure. The yacht is in its cradle on the railway which leads from the factory to the China Sea where the yachts are launched. Attention must be paid to the tide and weather for a successful launch. If Zhang Zhou port is the point of departure, it is 100 miles (about 3-4 hours) of open sea with no havens of refuge until the harbor mouth. Most of the yachts shipped from the here are loaded at the Port of Zhang Zhou but we have used other ports due to weather or shipping space availability one nearly 200 miles away and once all the way to Shanghai, 1000 miles distant in the North China Sea. Wherever it may be, we have to keep an appointment to be lifted out to a waiting cradle. Once at the port a crew will perform the final preparations before being lifted onto the deck of a waiting ship with a tight schedule. Large hydraulic trailers and forty foot containers with workshop and living quarters are moved to the port to accomplish the final preparations. These final preparations include a last wash down with a heavy application of wax to the hull and various engine checks and valve shut offs.

The shipping company always gives an expected a date of arrival at the port of entry, however, that schedule can be affected by many variables. Severe weather, of course, is the most obvious but there can be transit problems in the canal where ships must make an appointment to transit. If the appointment is missed, the ship must wait for a new slot. Ships run day and night and only one at a time can pass. Think of all the shipping from all of the Pacific Rim heading for the east coast of North America - and that is only one way! There is an equal number heading back with export goods and containers.  With the arrival at port, the Marlow Explorer now becomes the star of the ballet of events that are starting at the dealers' end.

The excitement at port is palpable. The size of the lifting cranes is awesome. The activity from the number of ships offloading and onloading tens of thousands of containers of goods is hard to describe. Watching a 78 foot yacht being lifted and put overboard is just plain cool. Once in the port, after multiple security measures are passed, the dealers' crew has a number of tasks to complete quickly before the yacht is offloaded. The current method of offloading is to lift the yacht directly into the water so the crew must be prepared to take off immediately. They must be sure the sea cocks are opened, the fuel valves turned on, the batteries connected and the gear stowed. Once in the water next to a large ship there is no place to tie up. On board, the cables that held the cradle in place on the deck of the ship are cut with a torch. The slings are put into place and the crane positioned to lift the yacht slowly so as not to do any damage to the yacht or neighboring cargo. Some yachts are put overboard in their cradles and carefully backed out of the cradle after it sinks a little in the slings. Some yachts are lifted without the cradles and must carefully back out of the slings without taking the slings with them. Either way, a skilled captain is called for. This starts the trip from the port to the dealers' boatyard and from there, you the new boat owner, can see the culmination of all your dreaming, studying and planning.