There were problems, too, with timing systems and with start and finish line decisions being made later than normal, while two days before the final downriver race was due to be held the organisers decided to extend it by 20 minutes, meaning teams had to paddle a further 90 minutes after the race before they could get out of the water.
"Unfortunately, the majority of teams were extremely disappointed with the running of the event. A lot of the talk was based around the fact it would be remembered more for how poorly it was run than for who the eventual winners were," Cairns said.
The first day of racing saw the Kiwi women pick up a bronze in the individual time trial but there were frustrations on day two when they were only fifth in the head-to-head sprint event where the NZers eliminated Argentina in the first round (the same day the All Blacks beat Argentina in the World Cup quarter-finals). However, their time was slower than their next opponent, Japan, and so the latter had the choice of lanes. Not surprisingly they took the left start lane which 95 per cent of the winning teams had been starting from. New Zealand almost won the start but Japan managed to get their noses in front and stayed there until the end.
The slalom was to prove the most defining and disappointing part of the competition.
This discipline involves a set course of upstream and downstream gates which each team had to negotiate in numerical order.
Penalties are given at five seconds if a raft or person touches a gate and 50 seconds if not all six competitors' heads pass through the gate.
Each team had two runs without a practice and the best of them counted towards the slalom result.
Cairns said her team was sitting third after their first run, a solid effort on a technically complex course and one which they knew could be improved on second time round. So it seemed until the results were posted and they were still in third place, having been given a 50-second penalty at a gate despite all team members having safely negotiated it.
Teams were given five minutes to protest results with a fee of US$100 ($124) required.
Most of the Kiwis had left their bags at the top of a hill in a secure area and time was running out. Attempts were made to have the judges take what money they did have on them and then receive the rest once they had got to their bags but they were stonewalled and by the stage enough cash was organised with help from a friendly Slovenian team manager the five-minute window had just ticked past.
Cairns said the New Zealanders had then approached the particular judge to see his notes but he had dismissed them.
It was a gut-wrenching blow and meant, while they were in second place, the Kiwis had lost the prime start position for the downriver race to the eventual gold medallists, the Czech Republic.
But the worst was to come. Another approach to the gate judge saw him finally relent and show his notes and they indicated New Zealand were given only a five-second penalty rather than the 50-second included in the results. Photographic and video proof of the mistake was taken and the situation is to be taken up with the International Rafting Federation in the hope of altering the result, which would elevate New Zealand, to the bronze medal position.
"It's frustrating and deflating to think what the mistake could do to the likes of funding and sponsorship, all due to no fault of our own," Cairns said. "It really is pretty infuriating to have a top-three position ripped from you because of something like this."
Reflecting on the downriver race, Cairns said New Zealand missed out on third by just two seconds and, because of the slalom error, were also pushed back to fourth overall with 742 points, behind Czech Republic (841), Japan (780) and Netherlands (763).
There is the chance the 2013 world rafting championships will be held in New Zealand which is now in a three-way battle with Serbia and Japan to host the event.
For Anne Cairns there is little time to dwell on what occurred in Costa Rica for she now starts training for the Vaka Eiva Ama-Outrigging event in Raratonga next month.
