NPE in wagon-ftp

When deploying a pom project to an ftp repository there is an NPE see trace below.
Don't know if it's related but there is no binary ftp client on the machine.

Issuing the same command on a windows machine deploys succesfully.

[INFO] [deploy:deploy]
[INFO] Retrieving previous build number from tux3-ftp-repository
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] FATAL ERROR
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] null
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.ftp.FtpWagon.openConnection(FtpWagon.java:127)
at org.apache.maven.wagon.AbstractWagon.connect(AbstractWagon.java:143)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.manager.DefaultWagonManager.getRemoteFile(DefaultWagonManager.java:354)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.manager.DefaultWagonManager.getArtifactMetadata(DefaultWagonManager.java:295)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.repository.metadata.DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.resolveAlways(DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.java:356)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.repository.metadata.DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.resolveAlways(DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.java:310)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.SnapshotTransformation.resolveLatestSnapshotBuildNumber(SnapshotTransformation.java:158)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.SnapshotTransformation.transformForDeployment(SnapshotTransformation.java:97)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.transform.DefaultArtifactTransformationManager.transformForDeployment(DefaultArtifactTransformationManager.java:61)
at org.apache.maven.artifact.deployer.DefaultArtifactDeployer.deploy(DefaultArtifactDeployer.java:68)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.deploy.DeployMojo.execute(DeployMojo.java:131)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:415)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:531)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalWithLifecycle(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:472)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:451)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:303)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:270)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:139)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:322)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:115)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:249)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1 minute 5 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Feb 17 17:26:57 CET 2006
[INFO] Final Memory: 6M/25M
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------