November 2019 / January 2020


Shipping from South Africa back to the US

Our lesson for this time: No, everything will not always go as expected


Armed with all the experience and knowledge we’ve gathered over ten years and six previous shippings, we anticipated a fairly uneventful process of returning our vehicle to its native shores following its most recent sojourn overseas.  And so it transpired.  Well, mostly.  As ever, like seeing an ad for an antique car that is '95% Restored!!’, even if that turns out to be completely true, that last little bit can be a real… you know.  Read on.

Remember that we ship RO/RO.  Details will vary if shipping by container, but the process remains the same.

The Arrangements:

We’d decided that it was time to ship our Tiger back to North America.  We’d been in Africa for sixteen months and had seen, if not everything we’d hoped to see, at least everything we felt we could reasonably get to.  The annual renewal of our Carnet was going to be coming up, the Tiger needed some work that was going to be difficult to accomplish while overseas, and, well, it was just time.  We gave some thought to possibly returning to Europe or to South America, but having been overseas for most of the previous twelve years, we felt we were ready to return to traveling a little closer to ‘home'.

We’d been quite pleased with the shipping agent we used when arriving in South Africa in mid-2018, so naturally we contacted them first in order to request a quote for shipping back to the US.  To cover the necessary bases and do our ‘due diligence’ so to speak, we also reached out to other agents so that we could get some competitive quotes.  We ended up with three quotations from different shippers that ranged from about $5,900 to $8,500 USD.  As our receiving agents turned out to provide the most expensive quote for shipping out, we switched to another agent in Durban.  Agent contact details are shown below.

We had a couple of options as far as ports from which we could ship, so we explored those as well.  For RO/RO shipping the major port in South Africa is Durban.  It seems there is some RO/RO coming in or out of Port Elizabeth, which is the primary container port, but not nearly as much.  Another option for us was Walvis Bay in Namibia, but in the end we opted to not return to Namibia.  So Durban it was.

After a few weeks of the usual back and forth with the several agents we were in contact with we selected the lowest quote, which was also the most direct route, and locked in a shipping date by making a deposit to the shipper’s account.

When discussing shipping quotes it is always necessary to discuss the size of the vehicle being shipped.  With RO/RO shipping, the main component of the cost is based on the volume of the vehicle.  Our tiger measures 6.7 meters long, 2.9 meters tall with the vent covers removed, and 2.2 meters wide with mirrors folded in.  Thus the volume is 42.75 cubic meters; weight of our loaded Tiger is about 4,800kgs or 10,500lbs.

The Shipping:  This part worked really, really well with no delays, no diversions, no surprises.  We dropped off the truck at Stanleys Removals in Durban on November 25th for a scheduled shipping date of November 30th.  Linda at Stanleys was just terrific, handling all of our paperwork, including the Carnet, and arranging the customs inspection, which took place the day after we dropped off the truck.  Since the Carnet couldn’t be stamped until following the customs inspection, Linda arranged to ship the completed document to us in California.

The ship left port on December first with an anticipated arrival in Florida of January 5th, for a shipping time of five weeks.  In the end it arrived right on time after stops in Trinidad/Tobago; Vera Cruz, Mexico; and Freetown, Bahamas.

Tiger On Board

About three weeks into the voyage the most amazing thing happened.  We got an email from the chief mate of the Alliance Fairfax, the vessel carrying our Tiger, telling us that the entire crew thought the Tiger was just the coolest thing ever and that they’d been enjoying our website.  Well, does that make your day or what?  It sure did for us.  They even sent a picture of the Tiger aboard ship.  Of course we replied to thank them for writing and asking if they could take another picture, this time with as many members of the crew as possible posed with the Tiger.  They were kind enough to oblige as you see here.

We really are past the point of worrying about our truck when we drop it off for shipping, but still, this assurance of La Tortuga’s safety and security not only brought smiles to our faces but really did tell us that it would arrive safely and on schedule at the end of its voyage.  It also gave this final (we think) shipping experience just the right personal touch.

The Arrival:

We were returning to Jacksonville, Florida, this making the fourth time we had shipped either in or out of this port over a ten year period.  Times have changed in terms of international shipping during this time and we certainly have been made aware of  the changes during our visits to Jacksonville.  Back in 2009-2010 we could drive our vehicle right onto the port and direct to the dock for both pickup and drop off.  No separate agents involved.  In 2015 when we shipped back from Europe it was all still pretty straightforward but now we couldn’t enter the port and had to pay an escort to pick up the truck for us and deliver it to us outside the port.

This time we found that we also needed to pay a separate Customs Broker in order to handle our Carnet.  This is simply because of where we were shipping from, not any actual change in procedure.  Had we been shipping in from Europe again this extra step would not have been necessary.  However, since we had to have a Carnet in Africa we had an added step to clear customs here in the US.

We arrived in Jacksonville on January 5th and hoped/expected to be able to have our Tiger in hand within a couple of days.  Unfortunately, here is where the process ran into trouble.  Whether there was anything we could have or should have done differently we’ll never know, but for whatever reason, our vehicle was “Randomly Selected” — don’t you just hate those words — for the honor of going through some sort of x-ray process that for unknown reasons seems to take days and days to accomplish.  It was also given an agricultural inspection looking for too much dirt or any flora - or fauna for that matter - that they didn’t want to let into the country.  So there we sat, for an entire week after arrival, cooling our heels in a motel room and hoping for the best.  We finally got the Tiger returned to us around mid-day on Monday the 13th.

Costs: (In US dollars)

  • $5,970    Total quote including ocean freight charges and all port charges, agents fees, etc. in Durban

  • $   100    ATM fees to gather funds to pay shipper 
          
  • $   240    Port costs in Jacksonville including shipping agent fee

  • $   235    Fees for Customs Broker to deal with Carnet clearance

  • $   125    Fee for pick up of vehicle at port

  • $6,670    Total 

When paying for the shipping of your vehicle, credit cards cannot be used due the extra fees charged and the ease of someone canceling payment.  This means that having a bank that charges reasonable fees for international money transfers would be very useful.  The other alternative is to pay in cash if the shipper will accept that or make a deposit at a local bank into the shipper’s account if they won’t accept cash.  In either of these two cases, you must gather the cash, in local currency, via ATM withdrawals, which of course involves a several days process and usually some ATM fees.   You have to pay the ocean freight and the port costs at the departing port before the vehicle will be accepted for shipping.  The port costs at the receiving port are paid there, generally in cash.  At both ends, payment will need to be in local currency.  The cumbersome nature of doing an international money transfer through our US bank caused us to once again have to do a bunch of ATM withdrawals followed by ATM deposits into our shipper's account in South Africa.  Fortunately their bank (FNB) made this a simple process.


Contact Information:

The agents we used to arrange our shipping from Durban:  Linda Marchusson at Stanleys Removals

Our agents when we arrived in Durban:  Cargo Compass JNB

Other agents who provided shipping quotes or were otherwise helpful in our inquiries

Agents in Jacksonville

Shipping Lines:

We once again found ourselves shipping with Höegh Autoliners.  On this voyage I did not contact any shipping lines directly but acted solely through the various agents named above.  In the end we were not choosing between shipping lines, the best quote put us on Höegh.

© Rick & Kathy Howe 2001-2023