The boat is rarely the problem. The manifest, the loading window and the order that arrives in three parts usually are.
We load to the islands every week, and the boat is almost never what goes wrong. What goes wrong is the paperwork, the loading window, and an order that arrives at the harbour in three parts on three different days.
Start with the boat, not with the order. Every island has a sailing pattern, and for most of them it is one or two a week. Find out which day yours is and work backwards: everything has to be at the harbour the afternoon before, which means it has to leave our yard that morning, which means the order has to be complete the day before that. Miss any of those and you are waiting for the next sailing, not for the next van.
Second, order the whole load at once even if you do not need all of it at once. Three small orders are three manifests, three loading fees and three chances for one item to hold up the rest. One load a week, planned around what that week needs, is how the guesthouse refits we do actually get finished on time.
Third, tell us what is fragile and what is heavy. Crating and wrapping are decided by us if you do not, and we would rather know than guess.
We handle the manifest and the loading note for anything we load, and we will tell you the boat and the cost before you commit. If your island is not on a schedule we know, ask anyway. Somebody at the counter usually knows somebody sailing.
