Summer Storage & Service for Your Yacht in the Sea

Whether you are a year-round boater in the Sea of Cortez or a commuter cruiser La Paz offers a wide range of marine services from dry storage to complete marine machine shop facilities at Bercovich Boat Works in La Paz. 

The traditional winter cruising season comes to a close in early May and many commuter cruisers for decades have chosen Bercovich Boat Works as the most secure place to dry store your yacht on the hard for the off season or to await the next adventure a year or more down the road. Bercovich Boat works have been the leading choice in the Sea of Cortez with an outstanding record for weathering the worst of the Baja weather with secure storage from both pilfering and the environment. 

But for those of us that call Baja home year round the Sea just gets to swimming temperatures in late April and there are abundant recreation and fewer vessels through at least late July. Over the almost two decades I’ve been sailing the Sea I’ve seen summers get busier, but you can still find an isolated crystal clear bay to wake up alone in without too much effort. 

So it was time for us to get the boat refit for a summer of recreation. In 16 years of boating in the Sea, this would be my 5th visit to the Bercovich Boat Works yard. Just two years ago we hauled our for a major cosmetic refit stepping and servicing the mast, and painting the ship from the lead on the bottom to the anchor light at the top of the mast. It took ten weeks, but the result was a brand new looking vessel older vessel with a 2 sprayed on two polyurethane finish over two coats of the finest two part primer. You could comb your hair in any reflection in the paint job for years to come. We could not have been happier with the results and the finish was much smoother than a tip and roll application that is often applied in stateside boat yards. 

This trip to Bercovich Boat Works would be a little more in the line of the standard maintenance program. My marine insurance requires a haul-out inspection every two years, although the bottom paint used by the yard is good for three to four years in the fertile growth of the Sea of Cortez. This time, it was also time to clean the fuel tanks of decades of diesel residual and replace portions of the exhaust system while ‘topping off’ the bottom paint. 

My first haul out at Bercovich as on the manual trailer, and it was an emotional moment to see a 37′ boat hauled out of the water like a personal watercraft behind a pickup truck. But nearly every trailer haul out is attended to by the managing owner, Abel Bercovich. Along with the fact that the trailer has been upgraded to a remote control hydraulic wonder, I now watch with great calm as 22,000 lbs of boat and lead emerge from the Sea like a wide bottom mermaid. The trailer haulout can accommodate mainly monohull boats to about 25 tons. 

For larger vessels the yard operates two marine railways. The larger railway can accommodate boats to 28′ wide and up to 160 tons. While my vessel was undergoing a little yacht maintenance the railway was occupied by an 110′ mega yacht in for some much more serious maintenance. The careful extraction on the railway of an 110′, multi-million dollars mega yacht takes nearly a half a day. From preparing the railway to receive a specifically sized vessel to the actual drawing up to 160 tons up the ramp onto dry land it is an operation to behold. Bercovich Boat Works has a leading provider of large yacht service because of the yard’s ability to provide such a wide range of yard services at the most competitive prices. 

This big beautiful baby spent a month and change in the yard with complete service to the propulsion system including truing the shafts, service to water seals and gear boxes and replacement of both propellers with shiny new brass props that each alone dwarf the price of my vessel. There was cosmetic work to be tended to as well, including the fabrication and installation of broader stainless steel anchor plates to a redesign, repair of cosmetic blemishes and day to day wear along with repainting of the entire transom to cover design changes. 

The Bercovich Boat Works experience goes back more than four decades with a history rooted in servicing the commercial fishing and shrimping fleets of the Sea of Cortez. The boat yard continues to modernize its equipment and services to meet the changing needs of mariners in the  Sea of Cortez, with pleasure yachting now replacing the commercial needs.

Boats for Sale: The yard is preparing to offer new services in the 2016-2017 cruising season and as a result is looking to clear boat yard space of the yard owned vessels and for sale by owner boats. The yard has a wide variety of both power and sailboats in an equally wide spectrum of seaworthy condition. There are a number of boats that would just require the usual new owner maintenance to allow you to beginning your adventure on the Sea of Cortez within days. There are also boats of both sail and power for the buy looking to craft his dream vessel from a blank canvas. 

We also have a large selection of salvage parts from engines to propellers So if you are looking to find that no longer available part, give us a call or drop us an email with a description of the salvage you require. We also have a number of smaller 2 cycle outboards, like the boats we have on hand, some are gems and some are in the rough. 

When you are thinking of marine service facilities on the west coast of Mexico, Bercovich Boat works can make a stopover in La Paz make your vessel more seaworthy or more beautiful. From traditional yacht maintenance to complete overhauls of vessels of nearly any size you should consider Bercovich Boat Works in La Paz.