Boat removal rates in Florida
Published per-foot rates by length band, the add-on services priced separately, and worked examples. Indicative rates. Every removal is quoted individually after an on-site assessment - the figures below are a guide, not a fixed price.
Most removal companies in Florida either refuse to give a number at all until they have seen the boat, or publish a single flat per-foot figure that covers every vessel over 30 feet. Neither is useful to you. A flat rate cannot be right for both a 30-foot powerboat on a trailer and a 55-foot full-keel ketch sitting on the bottom - and the companies quoting it know that, which is why the real number turns up after the site visit. Our rates are banded by length, the hard work is priced separately and openly, and the full-keel multiplier is stated up front instead of appearing on the invoice.
Removal rates by length
Length is LOA (length overall). Where a vessel falls exactly on a band boundary, the lower band applies.
| Length (LOA) | Rate | What this size involves |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 25 ft | $50 - $80 per foot | Trailerable powerboats and small craft. Not our speciality, but a straightforward job for the same crew. |
| 25 - 28 ft | $80 - $100 per foot | The transition size. Still trailerable in most cases, but heavier and usually past what a general junk hauler will handle. |
| 28 - 32 ft | $100 - $150 per foot | Where our speciality starts. Lift or crane work is normally required and beam may already trigger an over-dimensional permit. |
| 32 - 36 ft | $150 - $200 per foot | Travel lift or mobile crane, permitted road transport, and significantly more tonnage to dismantle and dispose of. |
| Over 36 ft | From $200 per foot | Heavy-lift territory, up to our 60 ft maximum. Displacement, beam and access drive the final figure; quoted after an on-site assessment. |
Full-Keel & Deep-Draft Vessels — × 1.3
Sailboats with a full or fixed keel, and any other deep-draft hull, are billed at 1.3 times the applicable per-foot rate. This covers unstepping and sectioning the mast, cutting away and coiling the standing rigging, dropping or cutting the ballast keel, and the deeper lift well the draft requires. It is the single most common reason other haulers decline a sailboat outright rather than pricing it.
Additional services
Billed on top of the per-foot removal rate, only where they apply.
| Service | Rate | What it covers and what moves it |
|---|---|---|
| On-Water Towing | $300 per hour | Towing an afloat or refloated vessel from its current berth, mooring or anchorage to a haul-out facility. Billed hourly from departure to arrival at the lift. Distance to the nearest usable pass and the tide window are the two things that set the hours - every location page on this site lists that distance for exactly this reason. |
| Sunken Vessel Salvage & Raising | $600 - $4,000 | Bringing a fully or partially submerged vessel back to the surface. The range is wide because the job is: depth, bottom composition, how long the hull has been down, whether airbags and pumps will lift it or it needs a crane pick, and whether fuel or oil has already released and requires containment first. |
| Grounded Vessel Refloating (Ungrounding) | $600 - $2,000 | Freeing a vessel that has gone aground on a bar, a shoal, a shoreline or a seawall and returning it to navigable water. Priced on how hard she is set, the bottom type, hull damage, and whether the job can be worked with the tide or needs ground tackle and a pull. |
Worked examples
| Vessel and situation | Calculation | Indicative total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 ft powerboat, on a trailer in a side yard, clear access | 30 ft × $100–150 | $3,000 – $4,500 | Straight per-foot rate in the 28–32 ft band. No tow, no salvage, no multiplier. |
| 34 ft full-keel sailboat, afloat at a private dock | 34 ft × $150–200 × 1.3 | $6,630 – $8,840 | The 32–36 ft band with the full-keel multiplier applied. Add on-water towing if the haul-out facility is not within reach of the dock. |
| 45 ft motoryacht, afloat, two-hour tow to the lift | 45 ft × from $200, plus 2 hrs towing | From $9,600 | Over 36 ft is quoted from $200 per foot after an on-site assessment. Towing adds $300 per hour. |
| 32 ft powerboat sunk at its slip | 32 ft × $100–150, plus salvage | $3,800 – $8,800 | Per-foot rate plus sunken vessel salvage at $600–4,000 depending on depth, bottom and how long she has been down. |
These figures are indicative. These are indicative rates, published so you can budget and so you can compare us against anyone else honestly. They are not a fixed-price offer and nothing on this page is a contract. The final figure for any vessel depends on the circumstances of that particular case: displacement rather than length, hull material, whether she floats, whether equipment can physically reach her, tide and bridge clearance on a water route, permit requirements on a road move, the condition of the hull after years of neglect, and what recoverable value comes off the total. A boat in poor condition in a difficult location can exceed the band; a clean, accessible boat with saleable machinery can come in under it. You get a written, itemised quote after the assessment, and the assessment is free.
Same-day assessment on complex jobs. For complex situations - a sunken or partially submerged vessel, a grounding, a storm-damaged hull, or anything where access is the problem - we can have a crew on site to assess the same day you ask for a price. There is no charge for the visit, and on jobs like these a photograph is not enough to quote from honestly.
“But another company quoted me half that”
You will find Florida boat removal sites advertising a flat $100 per foot for anything over 30 feet, and on a 45-footer that reads as $4,500 against our $11,700. That is a real gap and you deserve a straight explanation of it rather than a shrug.
The gap is not margin. It is scope. A flat per-foot figure of that kind is a headline number covering the easy version of the job - a boat that floats, in a slip a lift can reach, with the mast already down and nothing hazardous aboard. Almost no 45-foot removal looks like that. Everything that makes it not look like that gets added afterwards, once you have paid a deposit and the boat is already in pieces.
| What the job actually needs | Our published rate | A flat “$100 per foot” quote |
|---|---|---|
| Mast unstep, rig cut down and spar sectioned | Included in the multiplier | Quoted separately once they see it |
| Ballast keel dropped or cut | Included in the multiplier | Quoted separately once they see it |
| On-water tow to a lift that can take the displacement | $300/hr, published, quoted before work starts | Added later, rate rarely published |
| Florida DOT over-dimensional permit and escorts | Quoted before work starts, listed on our estimate | Frequently discovered on the day |
| Mobile crane where no travel lift can reach the vessel | Quoted before work starts | Frequently discovered on the day |
| Fuel, oil, coolant and holding tank pumped and manifested | Included in the per-foot rate | Sometimes billed, sometimes done improperly |
| Landfill tipping fees by weight | Included in the per-foot rate | Often billed on top at cost plus |
| Salvage credit for machinery, metals and keel lead | Comes off your total | Rarely offered, frequently kept |
How to test any quote — including ours
- Ask for it as a fixed, written, all-in price - not an estimate, not a starting point.
- Ask specifically whether the mast, the keel, the tow, the permit and the landfill fees are inside that figure or outside it.
- Ask what happens to the price if the hull fails in the slings, which on a neglected boat is a real possibility rather than a hypothetical.
- Ask for the disposal facility by name, and for a manifest at the end.
- Ask for the certificate of insurance before anyone brings a crane onto the property.
If a company will put all of that in writing at $100 a foot, take it. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we would rather you went in with your eyes open than felt talked out of a genuinely better deal.
What we see far more often is one of three endings. The price moves once the boat is committed and the owner has no leverage. Or the crew arrives, finds it cannot handle the vessel, and walks - leaving a half-dismantled hull on your property that now costs more to remove than it did before. Or the boat is disposed of improperly, and because illegal dumping is traced through the hull identification number to the registered owner, the consequences arrive at your address rather than theirs.
Our number is higher because it is the whole job, quoted once, in writing, and fixed after the survey. That is the only claim we are making.
What the per-foot rate covers
- Haul-out or extraction where access is normal and equipment can reach the vessel
- Road transport to the disposal or dismantling facility
- Dismantling of the hull, and stripping of interior, machinery and gear
- Legal disposal, including landfill tipping fees and scrap handling
- Pumping and manifesting of fuel, oil, coolant and holding tank contents
What is billed separately
Published here so it cannot arrive as a surprise on the invoice. Most jobs trigger none or one of these.
- The add-on services listed above, where they apply
- Florida DOT over-dimensional permits, route survey and escort vehicles on wide loads
- Mobile crane hire where there is no travel lift within reach of the vessel
- Tree work, ground protection or access clearance on difficult sites
- Yard lay days where the vessel must be held pending paperwork or an insurance sign-off
- Title, lien and documentation work on abandoned, inherited or derelict vessels
The four things that move the total most
- Does it float? A vessel on the bottom is the single largest swing. Everything else is arithmetic by comparison.
- What does it weigh? Not what does it measure. Displacement sets the lift, the transport and the landfill tonnage. A 34ft trawler can outweigh a 45ft sloop, and the per-foot band will not capture that on its own.
- Can equipment reach it? A clear pull onto a travel lift and a crane pick over a house with tree work and ground protection are different jobs at the same length.
- What is the hull made of? Fibreglass goes to landfill and costs you. Steel and aluminium go to scrap and pay you back. Ferro-cement is the worst case in Florida — high tonnage, zero scrap value.
What can reduce your bill
Salvage credit is real and frequently substantial on larger vessels. Working engines and generators, running gear, electronics, winches, spars, sails, ground tackle, stainless and bronze, and the lead in a sailboat's keel all come off the total rather than adding to it. On a well-equipped 50-footer this can move the number a long way, and occasionally it covers the entire job.
The other thing that reduces your bill is calling early. A boat that is sinking slowly, sitting on a failing cradle, or accruing slip fees gets more expensive every month, and a hull that has degraded past the point of surviving a lift turns a routine haul-out into a salvage operation.
Before you pay us anything: if you have received an at-risk or derelict vessel notice, check whether you qualify for Florida's Vessel Turn-In Program. It allows qualifying owners to surrender the vessel to the state for removal at no cost. If that applies to you, take it — it is a better outcome than hiring us.
Every line that can appear on an estimate
The rates above are what you pay. This is what sits behind them — published so you can put our written quote next to anyone else's and see which lines they have quietly left out.
| Line item | When it applies | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Site assessment and access survey | Every job | Whether a crane can reach the vessel, gate and overhead clearance, soil bearing for outriggers, and whether the hull will survive a lift at all. On a neglected 40-footer this is not a formality - a hull that has been sitting on a failing cradle for six years can fold in the slings. |
| Lift: travel lift, mobile crane, or hydraulic trailer | Every in-water job, and most on-land jobs over 30ft | Displacement, not length, sets the machine. A 34ft trawler can outweigh a 45ft racing sailboat. Beam decides whether a travel lift's slings will close. Fixed keel depth decides whether the well is deep enough at the tide you are working. A mobile crane brought to a private seawall is a different cost line from a yard's own lift. |
| In-water tow to the lift point | Vessel is afloat, or refloatable | Distance to the nearest yard with the right lift capacity, transit time through the pass, whether the hull holds water without pumps, and whether the tow can be done on one tide. Every city page on this site lists the nearest pass and the distance for exactly this reason. |
| Refloat / salvage of a sunken or partially submerged vessel | Vessel is on the bottom | Depth, bottom type, how long it has been down, whether fuel or oil has released, and whether airbags will do it or it needs a crane pick. This is the single largest swing factor in the whole estimate. |
| Fluid and hazardous material abatement | Every job | Diesel and gasoline volume, hydraulic and lube oil, coolant, sewage in the holding tank, lead-acid or lithium batteries, refrigerant in the AC and reefer units, and flares. On a 50ft motoryacht this can be several hundred gallons of liquid that has to be pumped, manifested and disposed of legally. |
| Over-dimensional road transport | Beam over 8'6", height over 13'6", or length over 48ft on the trailer | A Florida DOT over-dimensional permit, route survey, escort vehicles above certain widths, and daylight-only movement restrictions. This is the line item that does not exist on a small-boat job and it is why 'per foot' pricing falls apart above about 30 feet. |
| Mast unstep and rig handling | Sailboats | A 45ft mast has to come down before the boat can move on a road. That is a crane pick of its own, plus standing rigging cut and coiled, plus the spar cut into transportable sections if it is not being sold on. |
| Ballast keel removal | Fixed-keel sailboats | A lead or iron keel on a 40ft sailboat is commonly 6,000-10,000 lbs. It is cut or dropped separately, and it has scrap value that works in your favour on the final number. |
| Yard time and lay days | Any job where dismantling is not same-day | Space on a hardstand is charged by the day or the foot. A vessel waiting on a title issue, an insurance sign-off or a county authorisation accrues this whether or not anyone is working on it. |
| Dismantling labour | Every disposal job | Fibreglass hulls are cut with excavator shears or by hand with saws. Cored hulls, steel, aluminium and ferro-cement all behave differently and take different equipment. Interior joinery, tankage and machinery come out first. |
| Landfill disposal by weight | Every disposal job | Fibreglass is not recyclable at scale in Florida and goes to a Class I landfill at a per-ton tipping fee. A 45ft sailboat hull, stripped, is commonly 8-14 tons of material. This scales with displacement, which is why displacement matters more than length. |
| Salvage credit | Anything with recoverable value | Working engines and generators, running gear, lead ballast, stainless and bronze, electronics, spars, winches and sails come off the total rather than adding to it. On a well-equipped 50-footer this can be a meaningful offset - occasionally the whole job. |
| Title, lien and documentation work | Abandoned, inherited, lien-sale and derelict vessels | A vessel you cannot prove you own cannot legally be destroyed. Marina lien foreclosure, FLHSMV derelict title, USCG documentation cancellation and estate paperwork all take time, and the time is billable. |
How we quote
- Photographs and a location by phone. Ten minutes, and enough for an indicative figure against the bands above on a straightforward job.
- A free on-site assessment — or a dive assessment on a sunken vessel — same day where the situation is complex.
- A written, itemised quote. Fixed once issued, so the number does not move between the estimate and the invoice.
- Scheduling around permits, lift availability, and any title or lien work.
Get an itemised quote.
Free on-site assessment, same day on complex jobs. A written breakdown against the rates on this page — not a number that changes after we see the boat.