Bali Dry Dock Planning: Tides, Draft and Booking Windows

Written and maintained by the Bali Shipyard Build Desk · last reviewed 19 August 2026

Start with the number people get wrong

Brochure draft is a marketing figure taken at a light condition that no working boat ever reaches. Loaded draft — full fuel, full water, tender, gear, crew, stores — can be significantly deeper, and it is what determines whether a vessel can get to a lift.

Two follow-on points that matter as much:

• Draft varies with trim. A boat trimmed down by the stern draws more aft than its stated figure, which is exactly where the running gear is.
• You can change the number. Arriving with minimum fuel and water is a legitimate planning tool, and on a marginal approach it is often the difference between arriving and waiting.

Tides on the Bali approaches

Several Bali facilities sit behind approaches that are shallow at low water. The practical consequences are worth stating plainly:

• The approach window may be a couple of hours, not a day. If the lift is not ready when the window opens, the boat waits for the next one.
• Tidal range varies through the month. A neap-tide high water is not the same as a spring high water, and a marginal draft may only be viable on springs.
• Wind and swell modify predicted heights. Predictions are astronomical; actual water level is affected by weather.
• The lift itself needs a window too. The boat has to be positioned, slings set and lifted — that is not instant, and it has to fit inside the water you have.

The practical planning rule: identify the tide window, then schedule the lift for the first half of it, so a delay is absorbed rather than fatal.

Booking with tolerance

A booking expressed as a single date is fragile, because it depends on the vessel currently occupying the slot launching on time — and that vessel has its own weather and discovery problems. A booking expressed as a target date with a stated tolerance is robust.

Booking approach	What happens when something slips
Single fixed date	The slot is lost and the boat goes to the back of the book.
Target date plus tolerance	The lift moves within the tolerance; the slot is retained.
Target date, tolerance and weather allowance	Both operational and environmental slippage are absorbed.

Season and demand

Bali’s yard demand is seasonal and predictable: everyone tries to be ready before the dry-season charter run, so the weeks preceding it are the tightest. Booking six to ten weeks ahead is normal for that period, and longer where the scope includes a full coating system with cure time.

The counter-intuitive option is deliberately hauling in the wet season with containment and a longer weather allowance. It is less comfortable and it needs sheeting, but slot availability is better and the boat is out of the water when it is earning least. The trade-offs are set out in wet season versus dry season.

What the yard needs before it can confirm a slot

1. Length overall, beam, loaded draft and displacement.
2. Hull material and form, plus appendages — keel type, shafts, struts, stabilisers, transducers.
3. Documented lifting points, or a general arrangement so a plan can be drawn.
4. Intended tank state at lift.
5. Expected duration ashore, which decides where on the hardstand the boat is placed.
6. Whether hot work is in the scope, which affects placement and permissions — see yard safety and hot work.
7. Whether anyone will live aboard while ashore.

Duration: be honest about it

Understating the expected stay to get a slot is self-defeating. The yard plans hardstand positions around duration; a boat that overstays blocks somebody else and generates friction that lands on your job. Overstating slightly and finishing early is always the better play.

A realistic guide: a routine scrub, anode change and antifoul is commonly three to five days out of the water, set by coating cure rather than labour. Add running-gear work and it becomes a week or more. Anything with fairing, primer and topcoat is measured in weeks — the sequencing is on yacht refit Bali.

Delivery leg and insurance

Two items that get forgotten until the week of the lift:

• The passage to the yard is a voyage with its own weather and crewing requirements. A boat that has been sitting on a mooring for months should not have its first run in six months be the delivery to a tide-constrained approach.
• Insurance ashore. Cover afloat does not automatically extend to a vessel stored ashore or under repair, and yards generally want evidence of cover before lifting. Check the wording before the lift, not after.

Putting it together

A workable Bali haul-out plan states: loaded draft and the tide window it requires; the target lift date with a tolerance; expected duration ashore; the lift method and sling or cradle arrangement; whether hot work is involved; and a weather allowance. With those six items settled, the lift generally happens on schedule. Without them, it becomes a series of phone calls.

Method selection is covered in Bali haul out methods compared, and the facilities themselves in Bali boat yard locations.