Ok, I have been in touch with K-Mac as well.
Now this is all very tentative and may not happen at all, but he has quoted me a price of $AU120 per kit for a group buy of 20. Thats around 77 GB pounds.
So, not a bad price really. I know a lot of potential customers have been put off by the price of shipping and tax etc, so, I might have a solution to keep all those costs down.
It's a distinct possibility that the rig I work on might have a contract to drill offshore Oz land for a couple of years. if that is indeed the case, than as far as I am aware that contract will start half way through next year.
My plan would be to bring the said items back in my hold bags (paid for by the company) maybe 10 at a time after buying the set of 20 (I would have secure storage to leave them behind) then bring them over to the UK every time I fly over to visit. These would be on the drip so to speak as I only have cabin bags when I fly to UK.
This way, there would be no shipping charges and no tax as they would all be personal import for me!
My work schedule is 28/28 and every time I'm on field break I take a trip to Scotland to visit my delightful granddaughter.
As far as I am concerned this will be eminantly do-able, providing, a. The rig gets the contract and b. We can organise payments in advance.
There may be additional charges for freight from where they are to where we might crew change out of, e.g. freight to Darwin would be $AU60 for the 20 kits, that tells me they are not very heavy, $AU3 for each set is an expense that most can absorb I would think.
It might take a bit of time to get started but if it does come off, it would definitley be a 'not for profit' deal. All the major expenses, shipping and taxes being negated by my use of company flights.
Does all that make sense, I'm kinda typing this on the fly....
Your thoughts...
Jon