Posted 13 February 2012

We have over-wintered in Gibraltar and I thought I would share some thoughts on our experiences.

We have brought various spares whilst in Gibraltar, some locally, some we have flown in with from the UK and some I have shipped and collected from customs myself.

Spares via Sheppard’s

Sheppard’s are the local chandlery monopoly and I have found them be expensive and mostly unhelpful. None of the goods in their shop are marked with a price, so you have to roll backwards and forwards to the counter to be greeted by surly staff to be told the price of each item. My wife wanted to know the price of a chamois leather, there were at least 10 variants on the shelf so she scooped them all up and took them to the counter where she was told that that didn’t help as they needed the individual codes from the shelves!

I did order a new gooseneck fitting from them and they quoted me £20 shipping. In the end, they could only get it shipped express so they ordered anyway (without my agreement) and then tried to charge me £45. The item should have arrived in 4 days but it took at least 10 and then they only notified me after I chased them. Pretty poor service.

Spares via Hire U shop

There is a new chandler opening up in a tool hire shop on Waterport road. These guys are very helpful and reasonably priced. I ordered a holding tank and it arrived when they said it would – all duty sorted and ready for collection.

Personal import

I was a little nervous about this as I didn’t want to import something cheap and then get stung with unknown duty costs. However, our saildrive was playing up and I found a good secondhand one in the UK so decided to go for it.

I arranged collection of the unit and new fitting kit via a web-based courier site (www.p4d.co.uk). This was cheap and efficient, when you have placed your order it even links to a site which produces all the documentation you need, address labels, commercial invoices etc. I ensured it was sent to S/V Magnum (yacht in transit) and it arrived 4 days later. The shipping agent notified us via the marina and on the next day I popped down to clear customs and collect.

The shipping agent will complete customs paperwork and clear it for you (£15) but it is easy enough to do yourself:

First, get a blank “Gibraltar single customs declaration” form from the customs office.

To complete the form, there are a couple of codes that you require (I was lucky as I met someone who had paid to have clearance and still had a copy of his form!). The important bits are:

– In Importer box, put your own name, boat name and address and then in capitals put “Private Importer”

– In the 1st item line there is a column (28) titled CPC, enter 5800, enter item description in the box (29) and then in box (31) commodity code enter 84851000

Lastly, take the completed form and paperwork from the shipping agent back to the customs counter and they will stamp the paperwork and you are free to go.

The whole process took me 10 minutes and then the saildrive was in my car and away, saving me quite a few pennies.

Mark & Amanda Barr

Posted 16 February 2012

I would just like to add to the previous comments about spares and shipping in Gibraltar.

We have visited Gib many times now and would like to add that there is another small chandlery and spares shop, Marine Maintenance in Marina Bay, that is really friendly and very helpful. If they haven’t got the parts you need they will get them for you and quickly.

I needed to ship some items into Gib and they arranged the shipping and all the paperwork for me and it was quick and not too expensive.

They serviced our Yanmar engine whilst we waited for the parts too.

Jenny

Posted 27 September 2012

I can confirm how easy it is to do personal imports.

DHL actually filled in the Single Customs Declaration Form for me and it was waiting for me at the Marina Bay harbour office when I arrived. All I had to do is take this form with my passport and ships registration document to the Customs office – which is on the 2nd floor of an old pre-fab building behind the new airport building, (right next to the fence of the border). I was asked for my berth number at the marina but I didn’t have it and it didn’t matter. I was also advised to take the ship’s log, but wasn’t asked for it.

Once I had the magic stamp on the paperwork I phoned DHL and they sent a man to the marina with my SSB radio. I didn’t have to pay a penny to anyone. A significant VAT saving and worth a detour for expensive items.

Tim Chapman