Boat Delivery Captain Rates in Florida (2026): What a Captained Delivery Actually Costs

Owners call me with one question before any other, and it is a fair one. What is this going to cost? The honest answer has two parts. The professional fees are predictable, because a licensed captain in Florida charges by the day and the day rates are public. The voyage expenses are the part that moves, because fuel, weather, and the condition of the boat decide how many days a passage takes and how much diesel it burns. This article lays out both, with real 2026 numbers, three worked passages, and the trucking comparison most owners ask about. If you are still deciding who to hire, read how to hire a boat delivery captain in Florida first, then come back here for the money.

How much does a boat delivery captain charge per day?

Most licensed delivery captains working Florida in 2026 charge between $400 and $800 per day, plus a mate at $200 to $300 per day and a per-diem of about $100 a day for food. Standby days bill at the same rates. Where a captain lands inside that band depends on the license, the boat, and the passage. A six-pack license running short coastal hops sits at the bottom. A Master 200-ton license on an offshore leg in a big diesel boat sits at the top.

Those numbers are not a guess. Working captains publish their rate cards. Coastal Yacht Delivery posts a captain rate starting at $475 a day and puts the industry range at $400 to $800. Annapolis Marine Services lists $600 to $1,000 per day for multi-day passages with a second captain at $350 to $450. A Pacific Northwest captain, John Sheppard, lists $700 a day plus $150 to $250 for a mate. On the low end, some captains advertise $350 a day plus $100 per crew member, and in an October 2025 Cruisers Forum thread on delivery rates, one member's survey of the market put an experienced, USCG-licensed captain running coastal and offshore work at $400 to $600 a day, with long offshore runs and boats over 60 feet at $600 to $800 and up.

Sea Ready's captain rate starts at $500 a day and runs $500 to $700 depending on the vessel and the passage. A mid-size boat on a short hop prices at the floor. Offshore legs, large diesel boats, the longer Bahamas and Caribbean passages, and anything the insurer treats as a real passage price at $600 to $700. Here is how the whole card is structured, so you can compare a quote line by line.

| Line item | Sea Ready 2026 | What it covers | |---|---|---| | Captain day rate | Starting at $500 / day. $500 to $700 by vessel and passage | Command of the vessel, route and weather planning, owner updates | | Mate day rate | $250 to $300 / day, only when the passage or the insurer requires a second crew | Second licensed or experienced crew, required by most insurers offshore | | Standby day | Captain day rate, plus the mate's day rate when one is aboard | Crew held on station for weather, a mechanical delay, or an owner-caused delay | | Per-diem | ~$100 / day per crew | Food and water underway | | Pre-departure prep day | Captain day rate applies | Inspection, provisioning, and systems checks before the lines come off. A working day like any other |

A quote at the bottom of the market is not automatically a bargain. When a bid comes in far under these ranges, the savings usually came out of the crew, the standby terms, or the captain's experience, and you find out which one offshore.

What is the average cost per mile for boat delivery?

Captains who quote by distance rather than by day generally charge between $8.75 and $11.67 per nautical mile, with fuel, dockage, and travel still billed separately. Every captain whose rate page is cited above quotes by the day, and there is a reason for that. On a passage, the weather decides the schedule. A per-mile price that ignores standby time either builds a big cushion into the rate or leaves the captain eating the delay, and neither is good for the owner.

You can convert one to the other. At the floor of the Sea Ready card, a captain at $500 and a mate at $250 on a boat that covers 180 nautical miles in a running day cost about $4.17 per nautical mile in professional fees before per-diem and expenses. At 120 miles a day, the same crew is $6.25 per mile. At the top of the range, $700 and $300, the same two figures are $5.56 and $8.33. That spread is exactly why the day count matters more than the mileage, and why the boat's real cruising speed belongs in the quote.

What is in the quote, and what do you pay separately?

The professional fees and the voyage expenses are two different columns, and a clean quote keeps them apart. The fees pay the people. The expenses pay for the trip, and the owner covers them at cost.

| Owner expense | Typical treatment | |---|---| | Fuel and oil | Paid at cost, usually the largest single expense on a diesel yacht | | Dockage, moorings, pump-outs | Paid at cost, receipts provided | | Crew travel | Flights or ground transport to the boat and home again, plus a hotel if the boat cannot be slept aboard | | Customs, clearance, cruising permits | Paid at cost on international passages, such as the Bahamas or the Dominican Republic | | Parts and emergency repairs | Paid at cost, with a spending limit above which the captain calls the owner first |

On a long run in a big diesel boat, the fuel bill alone can rival the professional fees for the whole passage. That is not a reason to skip the captain. It is a reason to insist on a captain who plans the route around fuel stops, runs the boat at an efficient speed, and knows how much fuel a bad sea state costs.

Three worked examples

These are illustrations built on the Sea Ready rate card above, on three boat classes so the range is visible, with travel costs estimated and fuel, dockage, and clearance fees left out because they depend entirely on the boat. Every real quote follows an inspection of the vessel and the route.

| Passage | Days billed | Fees and per-diem | Crew travel (est.) | Total before fuel and dockage | |---|---|---|---|---| | Fort Lauderdale to Bimini, mid-size boat, about 50 nautical miles, captain at $500 | 1 prep day, 1 running day, 1 weather margin held as standby | $500 prep, $500 captain running day, $250 mate running day, $750 standby for captain and mate, $500 per-diem over 5 crew-days | About $200 for the crew to get home | Roughly $2,700 | | Fort Lauderdale to Charleston, offshore and ICW, captain at $600 | 1 prep day, 5 running days, 1 standby day | $600 prep, $3,000 captain, $1,500 mate, $900 standby for captain and mate, $1,300 per-diem over 13 crew-days | About $500 in flights home | Roughly $7,800 | | Texas Gulf Coast to Fort Lauderdale, large diesel yacht, captain at $700 | 1 prep day, 8 running days, 2 standby days | $700 prep, $5,600 captain, $2,400 mate, $2,000 standby for captain and mate, $2,100 per-diem over 21 crew-days | About $1,200 in flights out and home | Roughly $14,000 |

The Texas run is a route I have made, and the vessel delivery page describes it as five to ten days depending on conditions and routing. A large diesel yacht on a multi-day Gulf passage is the top of the card at $700 a day, with a mate aboard for the whole run. The two standby days in that example are not padding. On the Gulf and around the Keys a weather hold is normal, and an owner who is not told that up front feels ambushed by the invoice. I would rather you see the standby line before you sign than after.

The Bimini example surprises people, because the crossing itself is a morning. The cost is in the prep day and the weather margin. A Gulf Stream crossing with any north in the wind is not a trip I will make, so the quote holds a day for the window, and if the window is open on day one you pay for what was used. A mid-size boat on a one-day hop like this one prices at the floor of the range. A larger boat continuing to Nassau or the Exumas prices toward the top.

Is it cheaper to truck a boat or hire a delivery captain?

For a trailerable boat going a long way over land, the truck usually wins on price. uShip's boat shipping guide puts trucking anywhere from $1.25 to $15 per mile depending on the size of the boat and the distance, and Monarch Transport Group's 2026 guide narrows standard loads to $1.50 to $3.50 per mile. A 30-foot center console going from Fort Lauderdale to Charleston by road is a few thousand dollars, and nobody has to watch the weather.

The math flips fast once the boat gets big. Beam over about 8.5 feet, the usual oversize threshold, triggers permits and escort cars, which Boat Juice's 2026 transport cost guide puts at $500 to $2,500 and up. Height limits add route restrictions. Crane and launch fees apply at both ends. A 55-foot sportfish or a 60-foot motor yacht is a specialized haul with permits in every state it crosses, and the quote grows with each one. And no truck goes to the Bahamas.

There is a second reason owners choose a captained delivery even when the truck is close on price. A delivery is a shakedown. Over a multi-day passage the captain runs every system the way you will run it, at load, for hours, and hands you a boat that has been proven rather than one that has been strapped to a trailer. That is worth real money on a boat you just bought and have never run offshore.

What moves a delivery quote up or down?

The route and the boat decide most of it, and they are what move Sea Ready's captain rate between $500 and $700. Offshore legs cost more than the Intracoastal because they require a second crew member, more fuel planning, and a wider weather margin. Vessel condition matters, because a boat with a tired fuel system or a questionable battery bank needs prep days before it is safe to leave, and a boat that breaks down underway needs standby days while the part arrives. Size matters through the insurance requirement. Above a certain length, the underwriter will insist on a mate, and that adds a line.

Season matters too. From June through November a Florida passage runs inside hurricane season, and a named storm in the forecast stops the trip. In winter, cold fronts push north winds across the Gulf Stream that close the Bahamas window for days at a time. A quote for February and a quote for May can be the same boat and the same route with a different standby allowance, and the captain who prices them identically is the one who has not planned for either.

Owner-caused delays are the line most owners never think about. If the boat is not ready on the agreed date, the insurance certificate has not arrived, or the marina has not released the vessel, the crew is on station and billing standby. That clause protects both sides, and the way to avoid it is a written departure checklist that the owner and captain work through before the crew travels.

How the money moves

The standard structure in 2026 is a deposit of about 50 percent of the professional fees plus 100 percent of the estimated voyage expenses before departure, with the balance settled on arrival. The expense float matters more than the deposit. Without it, the captain is fronting your fuel and dockage out of his own pocket, and that arrangement ends badly for everyone, because a captain short on cash at a fuel dock makes decisions a captain with a float never has to make.

Sea Ready runs every delivery on a written agreement. The deposit and the expense float are paid before the boat moves. Expenses are logged against receipts, the owner gets a provisional invoice before arrival, and the balance is settled when the boat is handed over. Emergency spending above an agreed limit gets a phone call to the owner first. None of that is unusual, and if the captain you are talking to cannot describe the same structure, keep looking.

Getting a real number

Every figure on this page is a range or an illustration, because an honest delivery quote follows an inspection of the boat and the route, not a number off the phone. The hiring guide covers the five things to verify before you sign with anyone. If your boat is in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, or anywhere on the Florida coast and you want a quote built on the boat you actually own, call Sea Ready at 305-481-5728 or email julien@seareadyinc.com, and we will start with the inspection.