anyone in Perth got one and if so some feed back would be appreciated

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CRUZIN said..
anyone in Perth got one and if so some feed back would be appreciated

I saw one guy with the Access 5.0 a couple of week ago riding at Melville.

If this is the model you are after (alloy) I don't think it is the best option for WA. There is some reviews in France where people are having corrosion issues when using it in salt water. The Alpine guys use "galvanic isolators" to prevent galvanic corrosion between the alloy and the carbon wings however it seems it is not enough. Alpine headquarters are located in the mountains and most of their crew use their foils in freshwater.

If you are talking about their carbon/titanium foil I haven't seen anyone riding one in Perth yet. It looks like they came up with a pretty nice piece of gear.

Someone mentioned the Titanium ones were 10G English Pounds.

suppose if your car for carrying your kite gear was a Massarati then it would fit.

I did some very rough estimates taking into account shipping, gst etc.. I don't think you'd have any change from $6500 aud for an Alpine Titanium with an Alpine board.

I'm looking at getting their carbon gloss foil and board. Complete package including bags and gps delivered will be $5037. That includes the XLP and GT speed/freeride foils.

Delivery to Broome will cost $420.Anywhere else the shipping cost would be less than half that. Don't know where RAL INN's got £10000 from but just for your info the cost of the titanium is £2370.

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shodan said..
I'm looking at getting their carbon gloss foil and board. Complete package including bags and gps delivered will be $5037.

Does that factor in 5% for Paypal/Credit card fees, 10%Gst, 5% import tax and 50 odd dollars for customs processeing?

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snalberski said..

shodan said..
I'm looking at getting their carbon gloss foil and board. Complete package including bags and gps delivered will be $5037.

Does that factor in 5% for Paypal/Credit card fees, 10%Gst, 5% import tax and 50 odd dollars for customs processeing?

We'll see about the credit card fee but after buying kites and boards from overseas more than once I've never been charged GST, import tax or customs charges. The most expensive gear I've had imported was over $2500 which I'd say would qualify for those charges. Maybe I've been lucky and it's slipped through.

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shodan said..

We'll see about the credit card fee but after buying kites and boards from overseas more than once I've never been charged GST, import tax or customs charges. The most expensive gear I've had imported was over $2500 which I'd say would qualify for those charges. Maybe I've been lucky and it's slipped through.

Very often it depends where you are importing from. From China and Emirates for exemple, the seller can modify the value of the goods they send away so most of the time you will get away with not paying any taxes.

France is a different story though as businesses do get checked and by law it is forbidden for them to sell for less than they buy. Therefore they are usually reluctant to lower the declared value. In fact every time that I have imported some foils from France which were worth more than $1000, Fedex collected the tax money on behalf of the customs. No money, no delivery...

I doubt you will get away with something worth $5000 but if you do, please let me know as if there is a way around it I'd be keen to know what to do for my next order.

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shodan said..

We'll see about the credit card fee but after buying kites and boards from overseas more than once I've never been charged GST, import tax or customs charges. The most expensive gear I've had imported was over $2500 which I'd say would qualify for those charges. Maybe I've been lucky and it's slipped through.

I have imported a foil and board from France and hoping you wont be charged GST etc by it slipping through is purely wishful thinking. You definitely will. You wont however have to pay VAT on the France end (18%). You need to make sure the supplier bills you minus VAT. The 18% you save at the exporters end pretty much equates to the charges you will receive this end.
If you can get the supplier to send the individual components, in individual consignments, at staggered intervals, all worth less than $1000 AUD (including shipping) you may (for the time being as Liberal passed a law requiring GST on all value imported goods) avoid GST and import tax. It may or may not to be to much hassle for Alpine and of course then the shipping creeps up, probably to the point of no gain.

We recently got in some heavy duty PVC for repairing our RIB boat. $250 + freight $230
It arrived at Tullamarine then to get customs clearance we needed a customs self declaration form filled out. Seems you can't do this yourself you need a customs agent so + $100
Then go to Qantas there is a$107 terminal fee plus $50 per day storage fee.
In regards to gst and import duty. You pay the import duty of 5% then that is included for the figure you pay the GST on. So closer to 17% all up.

There's a nasty alpine failure on kf. Either hit bottom hard or it simply fractured with corrosion/ salt water use. Depends which story you believe. Dropped off and was lost.

Ugly drama, guy went straight to facebook rather than contacting Alpine.

Eventually they offered upgraded V2 foil at reduced price, which was not overly generous but considering his approach they weren't all that sympathetic I guess.

Either way the alloy alpines (access 5.0) might not be best for our conditions.

That was a V1 which used 1 bolt point. but now they have 2. as I understand it.

But the consensus was that he had hit the bottom at some point which started a fracture. Then corrosion got involved with the cracks and without periodic checking the end result was a lost foil.

Agree the damage to the Alpine foil on KF looked suspiciously like impact induced and their is obvious corrosion issues in the cracking so my opinion is the owner needs to come clean with the full story. The engineering on the foil is very high quality and serious thought has gone into the design so I can only assume they have put plenty of effort in the loading of the board connection and it's been design around the loads intended. As for the corrosion issue it clearly stated in the instruction about replacement of certain parts and the use of Tegel or similar to minimise corrosion through electrolysis. But the warning for all aluminium foil owners of whatever brand is check your gear.

sometimes it is an out of sight out of mind thing.
Alpine has a design to incorporate a Tuttle type mounting head onto their Alloy strut, that involves some machining and fitting the strut inside the mount head.

this conceals the top part of the Strut so without fully disassembling this section you cannot see the area to check.
Not that there is a problem doing it this way, but you do need to do the full strip down.

There is however some complacency in the industry in regards to Carbon in contact with Alloy. This is worse that SS and Alloy and may bite a few foil makers going down this hybrid route.