There were mistakes on both sides, on the mods and admins for not planning this earlier and gearing up for it, the techs for not checking things that might go wrong or would be game-breaking. Kowaman is just caught inbetween this but it's not his fault at all.
As far as I know the transition could have been done earlier and Kowaman's all we need to make the transition. That's what I've heard from mods. So him not being here = no transition = boring boat RP
Kowaman didn't exactly pop this "I have plans" thing out of nowhere. Further why was the map transition started while our lead tech monkey was going to be gone?