Boat Delivery Cost: The Day Rate and How to Count the Days

Boat delivery cost comes down to one thing: it's priced by the day, not by the mile. Once you understand that, everything else about a delivery quote makes sense, including why I don't publish a rate sheet.

The price question is the first or second thing asked on nearly every delivery call I take, and it's a fair question. This article walks through how delivery pricing works: the line items on a real quote, how the days get counted on the Great Lakes and in Florida, and what moves the number up or down. When you're done, you'll be able to read any captain's estimate, mine or anyone else's, and know exactly what you're looking at.

Two ways a boat gets delivered

First, a distinction that trips up a lot of owners pricing this for the first time. "Boat delivery" covers two different services: a truck hauling your boat over the road, and a licensed captain running her there on her own bottom. Trucking is priced per mile and makes real sense in some situations: smaller trailerable boats, very long overland routes, or a sailboat already coming down anyway for mast work. For larger powerboats moving port to port on connected water, a captain delivery is usually the simpler and often the cheaper path, with no haul-out, no oversize permits, and no disassembly. I've laid out the full truck-versus-water comparison elsewhere. This article covers the captain side: what it costs to have a professional move your boat on the water. If you need a captain for a day rather than a delivery, I cover the shorter jobs in what it costs to hire a captain in Florida.

Why deliveries run on a day rate

If you've been searching for boat delivery cost per mile, here's the honest answer: that's trucking math, and you should be careful with any captain who prices that way. You'll find boat and yacht delivery pricing online quoted by the mile, by the job, and by the day. I price by the day, for a simple reason: per-mile and flat-rate pricing pay the captain to hurry.

A captain being paid by the mile makes more money by pushing through weather they should wait out and running the boat harder than she should be run. A captain on a day rate has no reason to do any of that. Their incentive is to be right, not fast. I hold the sole right in my contract to halt a delivery when the boat or the weather isn't safe, and a day-rate structure is what makes that clause honest.

The line items on a delivery quote

Every estimate I write is built from the same components, all on paper before we start. Here's the full list and what each one covers.

Daily delivery rate. The core number: the captain's professional services for each day underway. A half-day rate applies where the schedule genuinely calls for one.

Travel days. Getting the captain to your boat and home from her destination is part of the job. A travel day bills at a reduced rate from a delivery day.

Travel expenses. Mileage or airfare to the departure marina, the ride home from wherever the boat lands, a hotel for each night on the road, and meals at a modest daily figure. These pass through at cost, itemized line by line, with estimates labeled as estimates and trued up at final settlement. A single vague "expenses" number on someone's quote is where padding lives.

Layover days. Days the boat can't safely move, usually weather. They're still billed days, because the captain is on the job and away from home whether the boat is making miles or not.

Coaching add-on. If you're riding along to learn the boat, instruction gets its own line. More on why this is the best value on the page below.

Deposit. Secures your dates on the calendar and is credited toward the final invoice.

One piece of fine print worth asking about before you hire anyone: how the days are billed if a mechanical failure stops the trip. A breakdown in Alpena doesn't send the captain home, so good captains settle it in writing before the lines come off. Be wary of one who won't.

How the days get counted

Since days are the unit, the estimate is really a time calculation, the same one that answers how long a boat delivery takes. I've written up what a delivery day actually looks like hour by hour; here's the math version, with a typical Great Lakes run as the example.

Say the trip is 320 nautical miles and your boat honestly cruises at 8 knots. That's 40 running hours. Deliveries run in daylight, so on long summer days call it 10 underway hours a day: 4 days on the water. Add a weather day of margin, because the lakes will take one whether the estimate includes it or not, and a travel day on each end for the captain. That's the shape of the whole bill.

Boat speed swings that math harder than anything else. The same 320 nautical miles:

• 6 knots (displacement trawler): about 53 running hours, roughly 6 underway days

• 10 knots (fast trawler, slow cruiser): about 32 hours, 3 to 4 underway days

• 20 knots (express cruiser on plane): about 16 hours, 2 underway days

Two honest notes on this math. Spring and fall days are shorter, so the same trip takes more calendar days in October than in July. And the cruising speed in the estimate comes from you, the owner. If you tell me she cruises at 18 knots and she really cruises at 13, the estimate is wrong by days, and the days are billable. Be straight with me about the boat and the estimate will be straight with you.

How a Florida delivery adds up

Every Florida delivery gets counted the same way. The miles and the boat's speed set the floor, and the run times for the routes I'm asked about most are on my boat delivery in Florida page. What changes from one Florida run to the next is which line on the quote carries the most weight. Four examples:

A short run from the dealer. A new boat going from a dealer's dock to your marina may be a single day aboard, and part of that day happens at the dock: the walkthrough, the paperwork, and a full systems check come before the first mile. Getting the captain there and home again still adds a travel day on each end, so on a short run, travel is a big share of the bill.

Across the state. The Okeechobee Waterway is 154 miles from the ICW at Stuart to the Gulf past Fort Myers, and most boats cross in two or three days. Here the lock hours shape the day as much as the daylight does. The locks run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., so a late start or a long wait at a lock turns two days into three. This winter, two of the five locks are expected to close in turn from Jan. 4 to April 30, 2027. Until the work is done, a boat bound for the other coast goes around through the Keys, which takes more days, or waits for May.

The Big Bend. Straight across, Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs is 147 nautical miles. A trawler takes 18 to 25 hours, so the Big Bend crossing runs through the night instead of stopping at dark, and a night at sea takes two people who can each stand a watch alone. On a delivery, the second person is a mate and a second day rate, unless the owner comes along and can stand a watch. A planing boat at 20 knots, with the range for it, makes it in a little over seven hours of daylight. From fall through spring, either boat waits for a settled stretch between cold fronts, and the days spent waiting in Carrabelle are layover days.

North in the spring. Miami to Norfolk is 1,089 miles on the ICW, two to three weeks for a trawler before weather, and the whole run north to the Great Lakes takes four to six weeks with the weather days in it. The first days are the slow ones: between Miami and Jupiter, about 30 drawbridges open on schedules, many only on the hour and half hour. On a run this long, the travel days are a small part of the bill, and the weather days are the part to plan for.

What moves the number

The boat's speed. See the math above. This is the biggest lever on the whole estimate.

The season. A fall run south carries more weather margin and shorter days than a July hop up the lake. In Florida, the margin follows the cold fronts in winter and the afternoon storms in summer, and a move ahead of a hurricane runs on the same day rate as any other delivery.

The route. Open-water crossings, locks, canal transits, and drawbridges that open on a schedule each add their own time and planning.

Crew. Some boats and some passages need a second set of hands, and that's a second day rate.

The boat's readiness. My contract includes a readiness checklist the owner completes before I arrive, covering the boat's safety gear and mechanical condition. If the boat isn't ready when I step aboard, the clock starts while we sort it out.

What stays on the owner's side of the ledger

The day rate covers the captain. The boat's own costs stay with the boat: fuel, dockage along the route, pump-outs, and any repairs that come up underway, all invoiced at cost on completion. You also carry the insurance rider that puts the captain on your policy before the lines come off. That one isn't a cost so much as a condition; I don't take deliveries without it. If she's going into or out of Florida, read the policy's navigation limits and any dates it sets for hurricane season while you're at it.

The best value on the invoice: ride along

If your boat needs to move anyway, riding along and turning the delivery into instruction is the cheapest coaching you will ever buy.

The math is simple. Booked on its own, coaching carries its own days, its own travel, and its own scheduling. On a delivery, all of that is already on the clock because the boat has to get there regardless. Adding coaching stacks the learning on top of time you're already paying for, so it prices well below the same instruction as a standalone booking. You come home with the boat moved and knowing how to run her, on one invoice instead of two.

Several days underway also beats any afternoon session as instruction. You'll dock her in marinas you've never seen, stand a real watch, run the radio, and handle whatever the lake or the ICW serves up, with a licensed captain beside you the whole way. I run bundle pricing on this at certain times of year, so if a delivery is in your future, ask about it when we talk.

Why I quote every trip individually

So why no rate sheet? Because a rate sheet answers the wrong question. The day rate is the simplest number in the whole estimate. What you actually want to know is the total, and the total depends on your boat, your route, your dates, and how much weather margin the calendar needs. You now know how to count the days yourself; the dollars are a short conversation.

When you call me, have three things handy: the boat's make and honest cruising speed, where she's going from and to, and roughly when. With those I can sketch the shape of the estimate in one conversation, and you'll understand every line on it. If you're still comparing captains at that point, good. Here's what to look for while you do.