Seems to be a bit of a lottery sometimes. I have bought the occasional boat from time to time and had it shipped from the US over to Australia. I can honestly say I have never had any issues that I can recall, I have never not received an item or have the item damaged in transit (largely to the effort put in by the guys shipping to protect the gear) I currently have a price to ship a scale boat from the US to me for under $400, but I have also had prices quoted as mentioned above ( would like to sit down one day and mark on a map pricing for different areas ). I have also had experiences with 45 size boats, in particular a Phil Thomas SS 45 hull, I regularly get quotes around the $200+ mark for boats this size but I have managed to have one shipped over for under $80US. Yes it is difficult to get hulls from the US to over here which is why I am so grateful to those that are willing to undertake this exercise, to those that don't its their choice/right not to and I respect that. At the end of the day, all that can be done is get a shipping quote (if willing to) and if the person is willing to pay it, happy days, otherwise just wait and see for the next item to be advertised. The scale boat that I did get shipped over previously was through DHL and again no issues at all. Might just have to stick to buying ML kits