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:: President's Report: Importing European boats into SA (Recently updated!) :: (1131 Reads)
Posted by
peterf
on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 06:01 PM
The 505 class is one of the growing racing dinghy classes in South Africa. The 505 EXCO has gone to extensive lengths to both promote and grow the class in all corners of the country, and to encourage true national participation. Several 505 sailors have identified the lack of new or rather competitive boats in the country as a stumbling block in the way of our efforts to grow the class locally. Not that the discussion on this topic had ever died down, but the question, whether to build boats locally or buy new or used boats from overseas has flared up again. A number of months ago the Exco initiated discussions with various role players, sailors, boat builders and investors on the topic of importing second hand boats and the effects of these initial discussions are now being felt in the 505 sailing community.
The growth in the class has led to the recent sign up of some distinguished yachtsmen into the class. Accomplished sailors such as Dave Hudson, David Rae, Greg Hurter and interested persons such as Mark Sadler and Dave Kitchen have expressed renewed interest in the 505 as the boat provides the right mix of a one design class but with some technical development potential. Let's face it the boat is fun to sail and it can be made to go seriously fast. For the healthy promotion of such a high performance dinghy, a plan was devised by the EXCO to help facilitate the importation of second hand Rondars out of Europe. We are now seeing significant buy in from various role players and this topic will be discussed eagerly at the upcoming Western Cape Champs in Saldanha in April. To make a facilitation of this nature feasible, 6 or more people would have to commit to buying a boat each, in order to make the forwarding and transport costs worthwhile. Our contacts in Europe (Dirk Rothe and Graeme Willcox) would help source boats in the buyers price bracket of around R50 000 upwards. The plan is aimed at sourcing sponsorship to cover shipping costs as well as assistance with the structuring of a financial package to assist in the purchase of the boats and centralising of administrative arrangements for shipping and importation.
So far Mark Biagio and Dave Hudson have committed themselves to purchasing second hand 505’s from Europe and several other parties have expressed interest. For anyone interested and willing to commit to this project, please call Peter Funke on 0722450154.
Regards,
Peter Funke
505 Class President
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