Health Insurance and Breakdown Cover and Senior Rates

Have been trying for a long time to get insurance as a result of having had cancer this is very tricky. Even Bill Stanley has said this is impossible. This has been sorted after much research having at one point being quoted as much as £3,000 for one trip. The answer is ring Marks and Spencers Insurance line and exclude anything associated with your cancer and they will insure you. One years policy is £113 with no trip exceeding 45 days. I also managed to sort out breakdown cover for an English car whilst driving in the USA. Quite a bit of research went into this, but its really very simple just join GM Breakdown Service annual membership for both Maggie and I £84 per year. All you require is an American address. I also discovered that most American hotels do a senior rate for the rooms which in some cases can be quite a large reduction.

Being collected early in the morning by Mark Stanton, of Empress Coaches which has been around since the turn of the century

PAY PAL DONT PAY ARE THEY IN TROUBLE?

PAY PAL DONT PAY MONEY OWED USING DELAYS ARE THEY ANOTHER BANK IN BIG TROUBLE? LIMIT HOW MUCH OF YOUR OWN MONEY YOU CAN GET IS OUR MONEY SAFE

Blog photographs, postings and invites

Being a complete amateur with computers and blogs this was started because people began asking many questions for information about how the cars have been shipped. It is certainly becoming much bigger than I anticipated. I will attempt to keep this going as certain people are very interested and others think why bother. I intend making most of the postings by email so no doubt there will be many errors. I will be posting pictures hopefully on a regular basis, but as you can see from the pictures above of Maggie with Charles Morgan and Richard Hammond, I will never be in any of the pictures as I am always the one taking the photos. To help I am a slightly older better looking version of my son on the right!!! Travelling in a Morgan makes it not possible to have enough equipment, laptops etc and also time to write this at even an amateur level but I will try. There will be so many leads for satnavs, phones etc for charging I hope we will not get too confused. Its great to have received so many invites from the various people on our route mostly off-line. Even the day after our arrival in New York we have received an invitation to dinner in New Jersey from Bob and Nelly Koetzner which we are really looking forward to. Finally, the US Open is being played in New York while we are there. Anyone know where we can obtain tickets???

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

MSC ENDURANCE 7820849 CALL SIGN v7hx3 docked in New Nork AT 9.11.23 (UTC)THIS MORNING. 74.15111/40.68148. The boat sailed on 12 August so 15 days is not too bad considering the weather. Our cars are in container no. MSC 4222023 so lets hope they are still on board and is not one of those that fell off. ITS 90F IN NEW YORK YESTERDAY AND 45 F IN SANS FRANCISCO THIS MORNING Ahhhhhhhhh

Communication

A satnav is required for America and the one I decided on is Tom Tom 940 which have maps for the whole world and also have a BUDDIES button. This enables people to know where each other are, whilst travelling.It also has Bluetooth.weather updates,Google and M3 music. We have had other power sockets fitted to the cars in order to keep mobile phones and ipods charged. With regard to mobile phones it is possible to use your own phone by buying an American chip or worse way new phones in America pay as you go are as low as $40. The other good news is that customers of Talk Talk in England are able to ring mobiles in the USA at no extra charge.

Problems

Luckily I posted a message on mogtalk and emog and a gentleman called Colin Gordon popped up. We arranged to meet him at the Old Mill, Berkhamstead on 17 June, which is a great pub. He gave us all the information about his trip in 2004 and his previous trip. He was unlucky in 2004 as he became very ill and his car went but he did not. Through his advice I have made many notes including EPAs and POAs and thank God I did, because on checking I discovered that PoA had been overlooked. Schumacher would not be able to handle any of the customs documents in New York without both our Powers of Attorney. This would have been a fatal error as our cars could have been stuck in New York for weeks and weeks. Both POAs have been completed but because of this big error, I thought it wise to check that an EPA was not required. Trevor called these people in the US the other day to get forms but fortunately it was confirmed yesterday that we do not require this as our cars are in transit.

Hotel/Flights New York

After looking on several websites Cheap Hotels.com came up with the best deal. We are staying at the Park Central Hotel, 4star, and is not "CHEAP". £100 a night in New York gets a "dosshouse"!!!! This hotel also has parking albeit $39 per day. The phone number is 001 212 247 8000.
The flight booking was multi city, which can be found quite easily. When going into book a flight rather than doing on the website ring BA and just explain that you require a multi city booking with the option of a changeable flight. This means that if you fly to New York and want to return from say Los Angeles they will book this. Should you wish to change the return city this can be done at a charge of £90 per person. If you wish to just change the date this can be done at a cost of around £25 which is what we have paid previously but it may be more now. This enables not only a change of city but a change of date (subject to the plane not being full). Should you return from an airport closer to England from your original booking you could receive money back from BA.

Shipping MSC Endurance and Problems

The cars are on MSC Endurance, which sailed from Felixstowe on Wednesday 12 August to arrive in New York on 25 August, which gives approximately one week to clear customs. This is very tight as customs can sometimes take as long as 21 days. I have been tracking the journey of the ship using Marine Traffic.com. The ship anchored off Boston on Saturday and Sunday 22/23 August, so I got the impression there was a problem. It turns out that the ship docked in Boston on 24th and sailed on 25th heading for New York. I will try and publish a copy of Marine Traffic.com as it is quite interesting. If you google the name of any ship you will see that you can track it where ever it is in the world. As at 3pm today Endurance was heading for Nantucket Island, so hopefully will arrive in New Jersey harbour later today.

Marine/Car Insurance and Problems

The people we have used to insure the car for both Marine and road use are Hagerty in New York. The contact there is a Mr Rick Worm and they require quite a lot of paperwork. UK insurers are not interested in insuring cars in the USA and US insurers will only cover non US residents as a member of a club or tour. Our tour is named the East West Centenary Tour. They again require a photo of the car, a copy of V5 and an itinerary of the meetings, clubs etc that you will be attending on your tour. They also require full details of your driving experience in the USA. You may also require an EPA Certificate (Environmental Protection Agency) and approval has to be obtained before shipping otherwise your vehicle will not be able to discharge the vessel and will be regarded overstay. Collection can only be undertaken by the owner. We chose to use a container rather than a RO-RO, which is cheaper but involves dockers loading and unloading and the chances are the vehicle will be left in a compound after unloading and driven by dockers. One thing I forgot to mention whilst loading the cars is that there should be the minimum of fuel in the tank and definitely below a quarter tank. Also forgot to tell you whether you can leave anything in the vehicle whilst in transit ie torneaus, luggage etc. Trevor and I both had fitted luggage made for our cars which was left in them. Anything else requires an itinerary. I chose to leave the vehicle empty but Trevor did send some stuff with an itinerary. We will wait and see if there are any import customs problems.

The Morgans are loaded into their shipping container

Thursday, 6 August both Morgans taken to Martlesham, Felixstowe to be left at Schumacher Cargo Logistics depot by 10.00 hours. On arrival we were met by Mr Ian Jefferies who is the agent in the UK. It was necessary for the cars to be photographed for the cargo insurance. The batteries have to be disconnected whilst in transit, which is quite a difficult thing as the battery in a Morgan is next to the rear axle. You are also supposed to let the tyres down but we didn't bother. They require a good copy of the V5, a copy of the passport and a valuation. The shipping costs include all UK/US handling import and export and ocean freight cost import and export. Marine transit insurance is an extra, which is approximately $700 The only other cost is sometimes the US Customs request the container to be x-rayed which involved a US fee of $175 and also a UK fee of £80. Fingers crossed this will not be required. The cars are personally driven on the container by ourselvess, the hood put up to stop any mess falling into the car and they are secured simply by 4/4 pieces of wood nailed with six inch nails under the front and rear tyres. They are strapped from the front eye to both sides of the container and strapped to the rear bumper irons. Trevor car has full length bumpers so that was easy. Mine had overriders so that was more complicated. The US representative is a Mr Warren Barnes of Schumacher who is a very knowledgeable man. Unfortunately, The outward journey is from Felixstowe and the cars will be collected in the New Jersey warehouse. The inward journey comes from the Long Beach depot and returns to the warehouse in Chatham, Kent. We were very lucky that SID RUTLAND, Trevor's friend and neighbour volunteered without any hesitation to be our "taxi" on the delivery trip, and as a thank you we treated him to Little Chef's great big breakfast, which he consumed with reluctance. MANY THANKS SID.

WINDSCREENS ROADSTER Melvyn Rutter

NEW WINDSCREEN FITTED 2 WEEKS AGO AND BROKEN AGAIN BY AN IDIOT FITTING SUNVISORS REPLACED DAY BEFORE SHIPPING. THANKS TO MELVYN RUTTER FOR HIS GREAT HELP IN FITTING THIS AT SUCH SHORT NOTICE AND WITH GREAT EFFICIENCY AND ALL FOR A REALLY GREAT PRICE. MELVYN ALSO SUPPLIED ONE OF THE NEW CARS BEING TAKEN ON THIS TRIP (TREVORS) AND ASSISTED GREATLY WITH MANY EXTRAS AND PARTICULARLY NEW, MORE COMFORTABLE SEATS FOR THE OTHER MORGAN (DAVE'S CAR). THE WINDSCREEN WAS BROKEN BECAUSE THE FIXING KIT MORGAN SUPPLY FOR SUN VISORS IS NOT CORRECT. THE SPACERS IN THE PACKET ARE TOO LARGE FOR THE BOLTS SUPPLIED. IT IS THEREFORE VERY EASY TO ASSUME THAT THE SPACERS ARE NOT REQUIRED AND SCREWING IN WITHOUT THEM OBVIOUS CRACKS THE SCREEN, AS THE SCREWS GO DIRECTLY INTO THE GLASS - BAD DESIGN. TREVOR HAS JUST CHECKED HIS PACKET AND HIS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN FITTING SUN VISORS.

Dave's Morgan

Trevor's Morgan

Morgans at Stoke Lacey home of Morgans and Prescott