Submitted by Patti Rhode
When we shipped from England to South Africa, we used seabridge-tours.de. We shipped out of Southampton in the UK. Very easy process and the port employees are friendly and helpful. We shipped into Port Elizabeth. The local contact in Port Elizabeth was BLS Portco SA. We worked with Natasha. She was great. She picked us up at our hotel, took us to their office to complete the paperwork then on to the port to pick up our vehicle. Just a side note – We stayed at Onse Khaya Lodging in Summerstand, beach area of PE. Nice place near the port, very close to the beach, shops, and restaurants. The cost to ship from the UK to PE was $3,761 in November 2018.
We shipped back to the UK through Durban. We contacted IVSS (International Vehicle Shipping Services) via the quote process on their website - ivssuk.com The cost was $4,040 in May 2019.
Martin McGowan was our contact. I think all emails were through the quote response. Martin is in the UK. He answered all our questions promptly, very easy to work with. He works with KZN Customs Clearing and Forwarding Agents in Durban. Vassie Naidoo was our contact. She even came out to the campground to meet with us. Very nice. On drop off day at the port, we drove to the forwarding agents office, we followed them to the port, dropped the van at the docks, completed the port paperwork, then they took us to our hotel. Very nice to work with.
We wanted to ship back to the UK out of Port Elizabeth, but no ships were stopping there at the time we wanted. We changed to IVSS and shipping from Durban. It turned out to be a good experience. Both IVSS and Seabridge were great to work with. We had no shipping problems coming into or out of Africa.
Our van is 85" wide(2.159 meters), 236.25" long(6.0 meters), and 108.75" high(2.762 meters). Shipping doc listed volume of 1260 cuft (35.7 cubic meters) and weight of 7600 pounds.