Shipping the motor home to Canada
The shipping of the motor home from the UK to Canada is obviously only part of the requirements that will inevitable allow use to drive our vehicle across Canada into Alaska and then eventually all the way south to Argentina. Other things to arrange when planning such a trip include the vehicle insurance, which can prove difficult to find, and the shipping of your own personal effects / equipment as these cannot be shipped in the vehicle.
With shipping one of the first choices to be made is obviously to which port to send the motor home, or indeed which country. Some travelling the Americas opt to go for one of the USA ports further down the coastline, dependent upon their itinerary. For us the port at Halifax, Canada was a natural choice as we will drive across Canada to Alaska as the first stage of our 2-year plus overland trip. It seems usual for the same vessel to call at five or six ports to load and unload cargo as it travels down the East coast of Canada / America before going onto other destinations such as South America giving flexibility to the traveller as to where to jump of at.
With our vehicle being too large to fit in a shipping container our options are more limited, we needed to find a vessel that could take it as a roll on- roll off cargo and surprisingly there are quite a few plying this route transporting cars, trucks, caravans and obviously containerised goods. Charges are made by volume and weight. Our motor home is 2.47m wide, 3.75m high and 8.05m m long, calculating to a total volume of 74.56 cubic Metres, maximum weight 7.500Kg
After trawling the Internet, reading information on various forums and other miscellaneous articles written by others who had been this way before in recent years, we arrived with a short list of companies who reportedly could offer such a service. We contacted among others the following companies with varying levels of success.
Company: Auto Shippers Car Shipping (A division of 1st Move International Limited)
Contact: Roy Hayball
Email: roy@autoshippers.co.uk,
Website at: www.autoshippers.co.uk
Tel No. +44 ( 0 ) 117 9828123
Fax No: +44 ( 0 ) 117 9822229
Free phone from the UK: 0800 3890784
Result of enquiry: Quoted £4.217 including UK documentation fee, sailing from Southampton weekly
Company: Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Liverpool
Contact: tony.catteral@2wglobal.com
Result of enquiry: Did not reply to our email enquiry
Company: Seabridge
Contact: Barbara Schuetze
Wilhelm Heinrich Weg 13, 40231, Düsseldorf, Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)211-210 8083
Fax: +49-(0)211-210 8097
seabridge@t-online.de
www.seabridge-tours.de
Result of enquiry: Quoted £4,667 to ship from Tilbury, London to Halifax. Offered a weekly service
Company: Kingstown shipping
Contact: Alan Shores
Email: alan.shores@kingstownshipping.co.uk
www.kingstownshipping.co.uk
Result of enquiry: Quoted budget only price at £3750, sailing from Southampton weekly
Company: Oceania LLC
Contact: Susan Howard, susanhoward@oceaniashipping.com
www.oceaniashipping.com
Result of enquiry: Did not reply to email enquiry
Company: Charles Gee & Company
Contact: Audrey McCurdy, Freight Forwarding Operations Administrator
Knightrider House, Knightrider Street, London, EC4V 5JT
Tel: +44 (0) 151 653 5131 (Liverpool office)
Fax: +44 (0) 151 653 8131
Email: Audrey.mccurdy@charlesgeegroup.com
Result of enquiry: Quoted £2,742 plus £75 port handling fee. Weekly service from Liverpool with ACS Logistics
It would appear from our enquiries that the costs for shipping vary vastly between different shippers and agents, spending time on the phone and chasing emails does pay off although it can be very time consuming and at times frustrating. We decided to use Charles Gee & Company, our decision was based not only on price, but also that they shipped from Liverpool which was a much more conveniently located for us as other shippers seamed to favour the port of Southampton.
The cost quoted for 74.56 cubic metres in November 2010 was £2,742 This included for sea freight, terminal handling at port of load and bill lading charge. Their agency fee of £75.00 was on top. We were also advised that we could expect to pay agent's fee and terminal handling charge at Halifax. The shipping company was Atlantic Container Line and vessel ATL Conveyor, although we where not informed of this until the payment had been made in full. The vessel is not only a roll on – roll off ferry (Non-passenger type) but also carries containers. Apparently part of this vessels work is to take Landrovers for the USA and Canadian market from Liverpool and does this route weekly. There is also a sister ship.
The exporting formalities are straight forward, once the agent (in our case Charles Gee & Company) have received the payment, a Standard Shipping Note is issued and this must be taken with the vehicle to the port along with your Passport. Without the passport you cannot gain access to the port.
On arrival the port security take a quick look inside the vehicle, presumable searching for potential stowaways as they only looked into the main living area, briefly at that. The security was not the shipper’s security, rather the main site security. They did not look in the lockers or garage area, I mention this as we were advised that all personal effects had to be removed prior to arrival at the port as the vehicle would not be accepted for shipping if not empty. The motor home was then driven to a compound and keys handed over. Our vehicle construction allows the living area and all the lockers to be secured separately from the cab and therefore only the ignition key and cab door key were presented to them.
Collection in Halifax was relatively straight forward but unnecessarily complicated by the fact the arranged receiving agent had gone out of business 12 months before, a serious failing on the part of Charles Gee as they had failed to confirm our details with the potential receiving agent, had they attempted to do so it would have become apparent there was a problem and a new agent could have been sorted before the motor home left. Unaware of this point, two days before the vessel was due to dock in Halifax we went to look for the agent and after several phone calls back to the UK all became clear, however a new agent was located by the next day to do the work required for vehicle release.
The staff at our new agent ACL Logistics turned out to be very helpful and fully understood our dilemma and did all that was possible to help us. They already had a copy of the Standard Shipping Note now re-issued with their name on it as the receiving agent. We were advised by them to go to the customs office in the town to try and get the vehicle release papers approved or at least in the system for approval.
The customs officer was very friendly and most helpful; he required the original Vehicle V5 document, vehicle insurance certificate, International Driving Licence (the UK licence is not acceptable) and two copies of the new Standard Shipping note to complete the formalities. To our surprise from this information they stamped the release note and gave us a copy to take to the docks. All we needed now was for the ship to arrive.
8 o’clock was the arrival time and when we arrived at the docks at 10 o’clock we could already see our motor home standing in the compound. We present the paper work to the handling company, who inform us of two reasons why the vehicle could not be released. First the customs had put a hold on it and secondly a piece of paper was missing. This paper was confirmation from the shipper to the port that they had received the payment for the shipping from Charles Gee & Company and apparently we should have had a copy of this prior to leaving the UK. Another cock-up!
So back to our new agent who promptly produces the paper required much to our relief and then back to the Customs Office. Apparently the motor home should not have been approved for release as it had not been checked underneath for dirt, but as it was their faulty they were very apologetic, pulled staff of another job to go and inspect it and within two hours had been released ready to be collected. I have to say that we were most impressed with everyone’s willingness to help us, what a shame it was the UK operation that let the side down. Having said that we would still use them again but next times ensure all the work had been completed prior to leaving.
The agents fee was a mere $75 and the port cost only $38, in all very happy and vehicle released the same day by 1 o’clock
AGENT - UK
Charles Gee & Company
Audrey McCurdy, Freight Forwarding Operations Administrator
Knightrider House, Knightrider Street, London, EC4V 5JT
Tel: +44 (0) 151 653 5131 (Liverpool office)
Fax: +44 (0) 151 653 8131
Email: Audrey.mccurdy@charlesgeegroup.com
Fee charged - £2,817.00 (including £75.00 port handling fee)
AGENT - HALIFAX, CANADA
Associated Cargo Specialists (Canada) Inc
Joanna Green, Manager-Atlantic Region
1697 Brunswick Street, Unit 1, lower Ground floor, Halifax, NS, B3J 2G3, Canada
Tel: 902 422 6991 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Fax: 902 425 0877 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Cellular: 902 229 4696 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Email: Joanna@ACSCargo.ca
Web site: http://www.Acscargo.ca
Fee charged - $75.00
HALIFAX PORT / VEHICLE HANDLER
CERESCORP COMPANY
Fairview Cove Container Terminal
PO Box 8958, Station A
6708 Bayne Street, Halifax, NS B3K 5M6
Tel: 902 453 4590 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Fax: 902 454 4772 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Fee charged for cost of delivery $37.79 (Please note: an additional fee is made for storage at the port of $110.35 per day for the first four days which increases to $215.48 per day for every day after this)
SHIPPER – HALIFAX OFFICE
Atlantic Container Line
Import Customer Service
1969 Upper Water Street, Suite 1608
Halifax, NS, B3J 3R7
Tel: 902 490 2543 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Or 888 802 0403
Fax: 888 258 2888 (requires country code when calling from outside Canada)
Email: Halifax_Import@Aclcargo.com
Web site: http://www.aclcargo.com/
Also take a look at this web site for an up to date list of shipping companies: http://www.forwarders.com