9:36 AM Tue 20 Apr 2010 GMT
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'Flying back to New Zealand might have been a cheaper option for Chris Skinner and crew.'
Frank Quealey © /Australian 18 Footers League
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Chris Skinner and his crew on Bassett Plumbing & Drainage are looking like they may miss the opportunity to defend their ANZAC regatta title due to being given a hefty shipping bill this week, which will likely need to be paid for the boat to be released.
This situation has come to a head from a series of events. In order to better prepare themselves for the JJ Giltinan Championship in February, Bassett Plumping & Drainage chose to ship their boat on a separate container to the other NZ teams to allow them to compete in some of the Australian club races prior to the regatta.
They received assistance from Hamburg Sud and Bassett Plumbing to allow this to happen.
Due to an unfortunate situation with a bio security concern, the ship with the other NZ boats was turned away, leaving those teams to borrow boats to compete in Australia. This meant Skinner's team had no ride home as they were scheduled to share the shipping with the rest of the NZ contingent for the homeward journey.
The Australian 18 Footer League then stored their boat and arranged for it to be shipped with their own boats for the ANZAC regatta. However, with increasing interest from the Aussies in the ANZAC regatta, they managed to fill a container and the Kiwi team had their boat put in its own container.
The first bill the team received for the shipped the container, was for $570AUD, 'we thought this was the discounted rate we were being invoiced for, and then we would have the trucking costs etc on top', Healy explains. However, on Monday the team were then sent a bill for close to $4000NZ, which still has to have trucking costs from Australia added to it.
'There's been a few unfortunate situations happen here, with the original boat getting turned away from Australia, leaving us without a ride. Then the Aussies wanted to help, but of course getting as many of their boats over was their top priority, so it was out of their hands', says Skinner. 'We feel like we've been lumped with the bill for a shipping error that we had nothing to do with. And when we got two very different invoices from the shippers, it came as a bit of a shock, so all in all it's become a pretty unfortunate situation'.
Skinner and his team won the 2009 ANZAC regatta and NZ nationals, and have been the top NZ crew at the JJ Giltinan Championship for the last two seasons. With an extensive development program over the last two seasons, the crew have personally invested a lot of money into their campaign.
Skinner explains their predicament, 'we feel our effort have shown through with our results, short of really nailing a top effort at the JJ. It's just that running a campaign at that level and funding it ourselves means we are always running a tight budget.
'We expected to be splitting the home shipping cost between the other NZ crews, but unfortunately we are carrying it all on our own, which is beyond our resources,' he added.
The team are currently looking at options to being able to defend the regatta which starts on Thursday, and are certainly open to sponsorship deals. Chris Skinner can be contacted on +64 21 656394 or
[email protected]
and Dave Healy on +64 21 470189 or
[email protected]
by Dave Healy
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Sailing
