All Abroad!

At first sight it looks like a great proposition: buy your new boat overseas and save up to 25 per cent on the local purchase price. But there's no such thing as a free lunch.

To find out what the possible problems might be, Trade-A-Boat checked out the scene with the boys who reckon they do more overseas deliveries than any other Australian-based brokers - the Beneteau mob at VicSail.

"On the face of it an overseas delivery looks like a huge cost saving," says VicSail's John Cowpe. "But the reality is that by the time the boat is back home in Australia, the owners have shelled out about the same money as if they'd bought it here.

"The bonus is that they've spent time in the Mediterranean, crossed the Atlantic and enjoyed the Caribbean experience, and had a South Pacific Islands odyssey."

That's if everything works out as it should. VicSail's Brendan Hunt has a string of horror stories about people who didn't find their overseas delivery a successful option.

"Buying a boat overseas and sailing it halfway around the world is an attractive idea for many yachties," he says. "But there are many pitfalls - especially when it comes to getting the boat you want at the time you specify.

"There's also the complication of paperwork, and negotiating the bureaucratic minefield is much more difficult for first-timers than getting in and out of crowded European marinas.

"It's vital for boat owners buying inside the EEC with the aim of exporting that all the paperwork is done correctly, or confiscation of the yacht is a distinct possibility. Mostly, we urge buyers to register their boats as Australian vessels immediately.

"There's also the consideration of Australian import requirements, and that needs to be planned before the European purchase."

A TAXING ISSUE
Contrary to what many people assume, sailing a yacht into Australia doesn't avoid import duty or GST. A boat that's relatively new will attract the same five per cent duty and 10 per cent GST as a locally-delivered yacht.

Older vessels will be valued and duty and GST applied, based on a depreciated figure.

"We got into the overseas delivery business 10 years ago, after enquiries from our Australian Beneteau customers," says Brendan Hunt. "But we did a lot of homework with the people at the Beneteau factory in France before we kicked the program off.

"It helped greatly that Beneteau is a global corporation rather than just a French company, and export business is an essential component of the company's boat volumes.

"It also helped that Beneteau's factory is on the Bay of Biscay - not noted for its balmy breezes - so Beneteau Yachts leave the plant ready for open-water conditions.

"Every new yacht is backed up with a warranty that will be honoured by Beneteau agents worldwide, so travellers are never too far away from a support team. Another important factor in customer satisfaction is that there's a network of marine equipment and service suppliers centred on the Beneteau factory, so fitting non-factory options and additional equipment, and victualling, aren't problems. 

"Most customers take delivery from the factory, but the alternative collection point is Antibes, on The Med. In the case of Australian customers collecting their new yacht in France, there's always someone from VicSail on the spot.

"We're used to dealing with the factory people and local suppliers; and because we've done the overseas-delivery thing many, many times, we're in tune with customer requirements. "For example, we can sense if customers would like some post-delivery assistance, and we can arrange a local skipper to sail with the new owners until they're comfortable with their new pride and joy.

"We maintain contact with most of our overseas delivery customers, even when we're back in Australia.

"We try to catch up with them when we visit Europe, and we're here for them when they return to Australia, to help with Customs clearance."

ALL AT SEA
Most Australians who arrange an overseas delivery plan the operation well in advance - typically a year ahead. Very few pick up their boat and sail straight back - most opt to leave the boat in The Med for at least a season or two.

Some owners even keep their boats over there semi-permanently, flying to and fro. Others sail The Med for a season or two and then head west, for home, via the Caribbean.

One prominent couple currently cruising The Med in their Oceanis 473 is Andrea and Ian Treleaven. The husband and wife sold their Volvo 60 and bought the Beneteau in July last year.

They cruised the Mediterranean until last November and laid the boat up in Italy. This year they returned to The Med, and when last heard of were at the Athens Olympics.

They've cruised Spain, Sardinia, Tunisia, Malta, Crete and the Aeolian and Greek Islands. You can keep in touch with their exploits in the Treleavens' Travels section of www.sail-world.com.

If your language skills are up to it you can also visit www.landinzicht.be and follow the route taken by another Beneteau Oceanis 473, skippered by Thomas Siffer.

World travellers Linda and Richard MacFarlane are back in Perth at present, but their boat is in Brisbane, where it will stay until they start a cruise up the east coast and around the top, heading for Perth. The boat will then be home, after a four-year journey that began at Antibes, in the Mediterranean in 2001.

"VicSail was with us for a week when we took delivery of the boat in France, making sure that everything went smoothly," says Richard. "From then on we had very few problems as we cruised The Med for two seasons.

"The Med's a funny cruising place because you seem to motorsail between gales, but we dodged most of the bad weather. When we did get caught out it was reassuring to look around the boat at night, knowing that things weren't going to break.

"We headed for the Canary Islands and joined the ARC and crossed the Atlantic in the company of 250 other boats - great fun. We stayed in the Caribbean for four months and laid up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from where we had the boat shipped to Tahiti.

"We could have sailed her across the Pacific, but we'd had a year onboard at that stage and needed to return home for a while. We went back aboard in July last year and sailed to Australia, arriving in Sydney just in time for the Beneteau Regatta.

"The VicSail people looked after us very well, just as they had when we picked the boat up two years before." 

THE BAVARIAN CONNECTION
Sydney-based North South Yachting imports Bavaria, Oyster and X-Yachts into Australia, and is also active in overseas deliveries.

Like the boys at Beneteau, North South Yachting's Andrew Parkes told Trade-A-Boat there's no real money to be saved by buying overseas - but there's the attraction of a boat located in a European holiday destination.

Andrew says that deliveries of Bavarias, X-Yachts and Oysters can be arranged anywhere in Europe, but The Med is the preferred collection point for most Bavaria and X-Yacht buyers. Oysters come from Southampton, which is a popular delivery port.

Andrew himself participated in an X-562 delivery this year at Port Grimaud in Southern France and helped with race-crew duties as the new owners enjoyed a successful ARC event: first in the cruising division and 11th over the line.

Two well-known Med-cruising Aussies are Ray and Leanne Holland, who have featured in the Bavaria Cruising magazine. They took delivery of their Bavaria 44 OzSea in Antibes in 2002 and plan to have it shipped back to Australia in 2005.

The Hollands did much of the necessary paperwork themselves and even some of the yacht's fitting out, so their experiences are well worth reading. North South Yachting, tel (02) 9979 3266, has copies of the Hollands' Bavaria Cruising stories.

Mariner Boating, in conjunction with North South Yachting and Bavaria Yachts, has a Mediterranean Rally program available for those who are contemplating an overseas yacht delivery, but who would like to have a taste of The Med's cruising life before they progress any further.

The first annual Bavaria Yacht Rally was held in 2002, and the next one is scheduled for Croatia in June 2005. (I port-hopped south along the Croatian Coast some years ago and found it to be one of the most beautiful and hospitable areas in The Med.)

All Bavaria Yacht Rally attendees have to do is turn up at the airport in Split, board their chartered boat and be ready to fly out of Dubrovnik at the end of the two-week sail down the Croatian Coast. In between, they cruise and fun-race in the company of nine other yachts, eat and drink heartily and enjoy the unique Croatian Coast experience.

The cost for the Rally charter ranges from $4195 per head, for an eight-crew berth aboard a Bavaria 44, to $5595 for a four-crew 44. A six-crew slot aboard a Bavaria 49 costs $5425.

You'll need to add airfares from Australia to Split and from Dubrovnik to the Rally costs. For more information, visit www.marinerboating.com.au.