@ Highlander - Hi John - yes, Philip from Aus has already been in touch. I'll drop you an email when the boat arrives in HK.
@ Bubba - ok, I really will have to stop writing on this forum. else I will become uncharacteristically rude when it probably isn't warranted. Responding to your kind suggestions and comments as charitably as I can, I should unfortunately point out that trailering the
from Dubai to Hong Kong is not really a weekend job, what with the Himalayas on one side and the aforementioned Indian Ocean on the other. These are foreign countries, thousands and housands of miles apart, with places like Iran, Afghanistan and lots of jungles in between, mud tracks, people who don't speak English, that kind of thing ... It's not nearly as easy as hooking up the Chevvy and belting off down Interstate 9. Maybe you've seen places like this on the evening news?
Of course the Macgregor factory don't want to ship secondhand boats; I wasn't asking them to - I wasn't even asking them to put me in touch with someone who could (at whatever expense). I was simply asking them to come good on their marketing spiel - specifically, the commment they make when comparing the
to a Hunter, to the effect that it's a better boat because it fits into a standard container.
Of course I could pay a carpenter to build a non-standard crate and then ship it at extreme expense. I could maybe put it inside a really big envelope and ask UPS to deliver it, or maybe buy my own freighter to transport it across the seven seas whenever the fancy takes me. Or I could pay the very reasonable US$2,450 to ship it in a standard 40 ft container. All of these things are theoretically possible - only one of them makes it onto MacGregor's website. That's why I asked them. Are you with me this far?
Laura replied to my email; it would not have been any more difficult or time consuming for her to write
"drop the axle off" than to respond as she did - she could even have said
"sorry, I really don't know" or "maybe somebody on one of the Forum's could help you". But she didn't. Laura is repeatedly and consistently dismissive and rude, and this has been noted time and again on this Forum. The factory really doesn't give a damn, and I think that this is both unreasonable (given that they themselves made the assertion) and shortsighted (insofar as Customer Care really does lead to improved sales performace over time. A little courtesy goes a long way.
My boat, however, has now already gone a long way on its own, so I can afford to dispense with the courtesy and be rather more blunt; in response to your suggestion that
"It would be like buying a new Ford car and after a year or so asking them to ship it overseas, I'm sure they would not even return your calls", if you had bothered to read what I had written - including the references to Ford - then you would realise that this is utter rubbish. They did return my (email), but I wasn't asking them to ship my boat. I was asking them for general advice on how to do so, given that they make the public assertion that it is possible and therefore presumably know. You can see that difference, can't you? You thought I was asking them to do something for me, in fact I was asking them
HOW I could do it, because they had said in their advertisement that it was easily possible for an owner to do using a regular 40ft container, but without explaing how to do so. That's different, isn't it?
The correct analogy would be Ford telling you that - unlike their competitor's vehicles - their model car would fit in a standard parking lot; if it didn't - and the Mac on its trailer doesnt fit directly into a 40ft container without unbolting things - you mght perhaps expect them to explain why their sales promotional material said it did fit (or could be made to fit). You're not asking them to park your car for you, or provide a parking lot, or give you one-to-one instruction. You are just looking for a little helpful advice in the hope that you haven't been misled into buying something which doesn't do what the factory boasted it could do.
@Catigale - whatever! I was reflecting upon the fact that you appear to revert to your entrenched position of defending the factory's stance on each and every occasion. Of course there is no financial interest - how you could possibly be accused of making money out of something the factory failed to do escapes me. The fact is, as a moderator of this website, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you to be slightly more constructive in your remarks, rather than mimicking the dismissive attitude shown by Laura.
That really is enough on this topic. Anyone who reads this and would like to find out how I managed to do it, and what the outcome was, please message me and I will willingly share the information with you in the spirit of camararderie and a common interest. No need to involve money, just basic civility and a degree of shared enthusiasm for our boats.
before it, and yes I am brand-loyal - otherwise, why would I bother shipping it halfway around the globe? On the other hand, are we really to believe that these boats are fundamentally disposable items, such that when you've finished using one the only thing to do is buy a new one, otherwise nobody is going to be interested in helping you?
