< The Euro Delivery Trip
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Next Page >
Post-Delivery
Nope, this story is not quite over... not yet....


Luke and I were now back in Canada. Our grand GTS Chronicles Euro Delivery trip was over. But, the overall journey wasn't yet complete. We had left behind our two Porsche 718 GTS 4.0s - left them in the care of Porsche and their logistics company.

For the first day or two, we were occupied with resuming our normal lives back home. Unpacking, going back to work, handling unfinished chores. But it didn't take long, maybe 36 hours, before our attentions returned to our two automotive steeds...

August 11 - Check-check

I message Luke: "Airtag Check?". He responds with a graphic showing the icons for our two cars still sitting in the BLG Logistics parking lot in Sindelfingen.

The location of our GTSes, August 11, 2023.

"Hm. Oh well. Gathering dust.", I reply. I suppose we needed to be realistic. The world didn't revolve around getting our two cars to us. This wasn't Fedex Overnight service.

The next week involved a lot of expense reconciliation. All of the shared expenses of train tickets, hotel stays, restaurant bills, rifugio rooms, groceries. All of it had gone into the app "splitwise", which I find extremely useful for this sort of thing. After going over all the entries and verifying that they were all correct, it was a simple matter to settle up debts amongst ourselves.

The other thing I did during the week we were back was to catch up on my GTS Chronicles Instagram posts. About halfway through our trip (roughly around the time we entered France), I had gotten behind on my posts and never managed to catch up. However, I realized that having a good time on the trip and actually capturing the experience was more important than timely updates. But now it was time to catch up: a post about our journey through France, a post about our "birthplace" visit to Zuffenhausen, a post about our three-day track experience at the Nurburgring / Nordschleife, and the post that said "Farewall and Bon Voyage" to our two cars (You've probably already watched all of these since they are embedded in the main trip report).
I was feeling a touch of deja-vu. Once again, Luke and I were relegated to reading the tea-leaves, the scraps of information available to us as to the state of our cars. A bit like in the days of waiting for allocations, waiting for build dates, delivery dates. Except now it was a bit more focused: where were our cars, and how soon might they get back into our grubby little hands...

August 14 - Movement

Fortunately, our covert tracker tags were of great help: On August 14, I ask Luke: "any movement on the cars (air tags)?". Luke responds: "Looks like they have moved", and posted a screen shot:

Our GTSes in Pforzheim, 10:00 AM EDT August 14, 2023.

Pforzheim, eh? Interesting. I quickly looked up the location. It was a nondescript, non-labelled office building in the town of Pforzheim, about 40 kilometres northwest of where we had dropped off the cars. There was no immediate street view, so there was not much more to be determined. There *was* a Porsche dealership - Porsche Zentrum Pforzheim - right across the highway from the building, so ... maybe it was some sort of adjacent overflow or administrative Porsche facility, and the cars were here to load or unload cars related to that dealership? Who knew...

The next day they had moved again. Definitely on their way north towards the Baltic seaboard:

Our GTSes on the highway northbound, 7:30 AM EDT August 15, 2023.

Luke and I engage in a bit of hopeful speculation:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 15, 2023, 9:16 AM
on the way, yes

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 15, 2023, 9:16 AM
I imagine this will update quite often now

From: Luke Ward - Aug 15, 2023, 10:54 AM
Yes, I can basically see them moving along the highway

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 15, 2023, 1:15 PM
I would guess they should arrive at Emden sometime today then

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 15, 2023, 1:15 PM
then I suppose they'll wait in some holding lot for some time

From: Luke Ward - Aug 15, 2023, 1:38 PM
I guess it all depends on how full the ship is when they arrive there

From: Luke Ward - Aug 15, 2023, 1:38 PM
Maybe we'll get lucky and have the last two to go onto a ship that is leaving right away


August 16 - The Port of Emden

Things continue to go smoothly on the transport front. The airtags soon report that our cars have arrived at the port of Emden - the deep sea shipping port that Porsche uses for the vast majority of its off-continent vehicle shipments from Germany.

Our GTSes arrive at Port of Emden, 8:17 AM EDT August 16, 2023.

We are pleased with the rapid progress and the frequent updates:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 16, 2023, 9:27 AM
nice. Also nice to see that they are not separating the cars from each other

From: Luke Ward - Aug 16, 2023, 9:28 AM
Yes, these AirTags are proving to be useful

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 16, 2023, 11:26 AM
They are. I guess this wait now will be the most important one. (the wait to get on a ship)

From: Luke Ward - Aug 16, 2023, 11:29 AM
Yep


August 18 - Port Pause

Once at the port, the car movements went quiet for a while. This wasn't entirely surprising.... our understanding was that our cars would be inserted along with all of the other German cars (Porsche and likely others) getting sent out in huge batches on roll-on/roll-off car carrier ships. And, of course, those would only come around periodically.

Completely coincidentally and separately from the whole GTS Chronicles adventure, circumstances back here at home had pushed me to buy a new home. Those circumstances had actually developed before the summer Euro Delivery trip, and I had deferred that activity until my return. Now that I was back, I was starting to plan, and soon my thoughts turned to those big German VAT deposits that I had placed on both cars. I wanted that money back now, to lump in with the money needed for the new house. And that in turn meant that I had to confront the fact that I would have to start interacting with our dealership again:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 18, 2023, 2:26 PM
when exactly did Christina say we'd get the VAT deposits returned? technically as soon as the cars leave Europe (or at the latest arrive in Hallifax), the need for the VAT holding evaporates

From: Luke Ward - Aug 18, 2023, 2:27 PM
I wanna say she said when they get the cars in London, Ontario. Even tho that's BS.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 18, 2023, 2:27 PM
It's convenient and safe for them but yes, that is beyond what is needed

From: Luke Ward - Aug 18, 2023, 2:27 PM
I think that's a question worth posing.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 18, 2023, 2:28 PM
I know what the answer is already

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 18, 2023, 2:28 PM
the question is... do I want to start getting angry


We were already not happy that Porsche of London had basically summarily dismissed any possibility of a Courtesy Delivery to Halifax, where we would have picked up our cars at the Porsche Halifax dealership. Doing so would have made the upcoming "surprise arrival at Luke's parents in New Brunswick" idea so convenient. Even though it was very likely possible, according to the documents we had reviewed, there had been (as usual) no room for negotiation, no demonstration of transparency. Just a "no".

August 21 - Boarding Time!

Luke was now well-primed to make frequent car location checks on the Airtags. On the 21st, he reported movement: "Boxster has moved. Looks like perhaps they are rolling onto the boat."

Luke's eagle eyes spot movement of Boxster and Cayman, over the course of a few hours, onto what appears to be a ship:
August 21-22, 2023: The Boxster and Cayman are loaded, one by one, onto a transport ship.

On a ship. Well, well, good news. Being unable to just leave it at that, I start to do a bit of searching. Within a few minutes, we had a candidate:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 22, 2023, 9:14 AM
This is our ship: The Siem Confucius

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 22, 2023, 9:16 AM
https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9841017

From: Luke Ward - Aug 22, 2023, 1:49 PM
Oh, how did you find that out?

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 22, 2023, 1:50 PM
simply by inference

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 22, 2023, 1:50 PM
there's only one ship in the exact spot where your map shows so it must be that ship

From: Luke Ward - Aug 22, 2023, 1:52 PM
Oh, a ship tracker website?

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 22, 2023, 1:53 PM
yes there are many out there

there's a link up there (that I posted)

From: Luke Ward - Aug 22, 2023, 1:57 PM
I see, thanks
Very nice


On the night of August 21/22, The GTS Chronicles are loaded onto to the LNG-powered Siem Confucius Roll-on/Roll-off vehicle carrier.


Apparently the Siem Confucius is the largest car-carrier ship in the world (or at least it was in the 2022-2023 timeframe). If you are so inclined, you can learn more about the ship at https://www.siemcarcarriers.com/news/a-look-inside-the-lng-powered-siem-confucius.

Excitedly, not 24 hours later, the online tracking site showed that the ship had started to move away from port:

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 23, 2023, 8:34 PM
ship is on the move

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 23, 2023, 8:34 PM
left port about 10 minutes ago

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 23, 2023, 8:34 PM
showing ETA halifax on Sep 01.

From: Luke Ward - Aug 23, 2023, 9:50 PM
Wow, that would be great if our cars were on it. I will keep an eye out for AirTag indicators that the cars are not at the port anymore.

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 23, 2023, 9:52 PM
I'm 99% sure our cars are on that boat, given the last airtag location

From: Andrew Lavigne - Aug 23, 2023, 9:52 PM
plus I wouldn't be surprised if the airtags already show some movement

On the home buying front, I manage to find a nice place on a quiet dead-end and - most importantly for a car-guy like me - a nice spacious high-ceiling'ed garage for a shiny red Carmine Red Cayman GTS 4.0 to live.

August 29 - Cross-check

With the departure of the boat, and with no further Airtag updates from the Cayman or Boxster, we could conclude nothing other than that our cars were indeed on that boat (since if the cars were still at the pier, we'd be getting airtag updates). But just to be 1000% sure, I figured I would use the status update contact that Salvador at BLG logistics had given me. On August 29, I sent an email to him, inquiring about who to ask about a status update on our cars. He quickly responded, saying he would forward my request onto his colleagues that worked with the shipping broker. He even included the line from his records with respect to the Cayman:

BLG Logistics record for the shipment of my Cayman GTS from Germany to Halifax

And the very next day, a friendly response from a freight broker:

Dear Andrew,

I am pleased to inform you that your car is booked on the Siem Confucius that departed the port of Emden on 08/24. It has a current ETA to the port of Halifax as 09/03.

Once your vehicle arrives at the port, it generally takes 24-48 hours for the vehicle to be ready for pick up. Porsche arranges the pick up and delivery to your selected dealer directly. For this part of the move, I will unfortunately not have access to any tracking, but your Porsche representative should be able to give you an estimate arrival time to the dealer after it arrives at the final port.

If you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Best regards,
CHRIS HURT
Customer Service Manager
International Freight Forwarders

Wow, so friendly and informative. And all of the information correlated quite well with the intel from our airtags and the guesses we had made. Nice confirmation; it put our minds at ease.

Always on the lookout for updates, I kept my eyes peeled on the ship tracker websites. Slowly but surely, the Siem Confucius made its way across the Atlantic towards the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia. On August 30, it entered the waters of the Canadian Grand Banks. Not too long before the port of Halifax!

August 30: Location of the Siem Confucius, carrying The GTS Chronicles. Only a few more days before arrival at the Port of Halifax.
< The Euro Delivery Trip
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Next Page >
Send feedback or leave comments (note: comments in message board below are separate from those in above message board)
send feedback | homemade custom message board
(Message Board failed to initialize. )
Web Page & Design Copyright 2001- 2025 by Andrew Lavigne. (Privacy Policy)