Fine fittings
New Zealand has a rich history in backyard marine manufacturing. For more than 20 years Rob Rowdon’s manufactured the highlyregarded Robb marine fittings. He’s also built some very fine boats. This is his story.
Born in 1948 in Takapuna, Rowdon’s father Stuart Freakes was a director of department store Milne and Choyce which then employed over 600 staff. Freakes was mad-keen on boating and owned a number of Bill Couldry 18-footers, including Jeanette. One of his best friends was a boatbuilder – the late Brin Wilson, then based in Porana Rd, Takapuna.
Rowdon had a typical Auckland sailing background in dinghies – a Sabot, a Frostbite, a Cherokee, and two Des Townson dinghies, a Dart and a Zephyr. He didn’t agree with school and left as soon as he could. He wanted to be a boatbuilder but dad refused: “There’s no money in boatbuilding so you’re not doing that.”
Instead Rowdon joined Caltex Oil as a filing assistant, which he hated, before becoming a cadet for Kidd Garrett Engineering. Three years later he joined AG Healing where he sold electroplating supplies.
One of the family’s friends was the late Murray Wiseman, owner of the K Class Jenanne (K2) and producer of the wellknown Murray winches. Wiseman became a mentor to Rowdon and, around 1970, inspired him to start making marine fittings.
He branded them Robb fittings and his first was a Pelican hook. Intended to replace lanyards for rigging dinghies, once set up the Pelican hook’s over-centre locking function allowed rigging to be disconnected and reattached to the chainplates in seconds without disturbing the stay’s tension. The Pelican hook was also used extensively for lifelines and Rowdon sold many thousands.
Most of Rowdon’s castings were bronze, usually done by Heerdegen Foundries. Operating from his garage, Rowdon would do all the polishing and assembly on rudimentary equipment – just a drill press and a linisher.
He sold his fittings through wholesalers and yacht riggers, Terry Gillespie being a major customer. More complex fittings required engineering, which Rowdon farmed out to the late Ray Allen who had the necessary turret lathes.
Rowdon continually added new products to the Robb lineup, many designed in conjunction with Wiseman. The pair would toss around ideas, work up prototypes, then refine them into production. Rowdon paid Wiseman a commission on the finished products.
Popular fittings included rigging screws in sizes ranging from 3/8th to 7/8th inches, the bigger ones requiring considerable engineering on a turret lathe. He also produced cleats, bollards, alloy forehatches and screw-down latches. His most innovative fitting was the Robb lever-activated rope-jammer which, despite its simple exterior contained complex internals and took a long time to perfect. It came in three sizes.
Ray Hasler’s One Tonner Jenny H was the first boat fitted with these and, as Rowdon was undercapitalised, Hasler funded the complex dies. While Rowdon had worldwide patent pending protection, he lacked the funds to convert this into permanent protection, so once the pending protection lapsed, other companies copied his fittings. “I’d invest hundreds of hours making a fitting, to have someone else reverse engineer it and produce it cheaper.”
As many have found, pursuing justice through the courts, especially when dealing with overseas companies, can cost more than any potential gains and Rowdon was forced to take it on the chin.
From the mid-1970s he operated from a corner within Chris Robertson’s shed and occasionally helped out with boatbuilding during quiet times. “The happiest years of my working life,” he recalls.
Later on he bought his own factory which kickstarted him into buying and renting out other factory units. He sold his marine fittings business around 1990 to New Zealand Fasteners, although he carried on a part-time basis making fittings on contract.
By then he’d become heavily involved in custom engineering for local boatbuilders such as Kerry Alexander, Kelly Archer, Terry Cookson, Formula Boats, John Rea, Chris Robertson,
Salthouse Bros, Don Senior, Brin Wilson and Yachtspars.
He installed engines, propellers, rudders, steering, plumbing and hydraulic systems. He was also a pioneer supplier of rudder roller bearings, especially for the Farr 11.6, which had a heavy helm. Designers Ray Beale and Laurie Davidson were keen promotors of rudder roller bearings on their boats. Rowdon did custom engineering work until recently.
Besides all this engineering work, he’s also a highly-skilled boatbuilder and has built some magnificent boats. His first keeler experience was crewing on Solings and Stewart 34s during the early 1970s.
After marrying Jill (nee Robson) in 1970, Rowdon decided to build his own cruising keeler. He bought a set of 11m plans from Des Townson. He commissioned Brin Wilson to build the hull in three-skin kauri, before trucking it to his home where he added the decks, cabin, coamings and cockpit.
But with a young family – the couple eventually had four children – Rowdon couldn’t afford to finish the yacht, so he sold it to lawyer Graham Bennett, who took it back to Wilson
for finishing. This became Hotspur and she’s still around in Auckland.
This deal provided a modest profit, so Rowdon then commissioned Robertson to design and build an 11.6m keeler. The hull had been built in three-skin kauri when Security Bank, which Rowdon had used as a bank for the funds to build the yacht, went into receivership and all his money disappeared. Robertson was really good about the situation and parked the hull in a corner of his shed until Rowdon, with his father’s help, amassed sufficient funds to finish the yacht, which became Michelle.
Shortly afterwards Muldoon’s 1979 Boat tax torpedoed the marine industry and Rowdon’s business took a major hit. He turned to house building for a time and was eventually forced to sell Michelle. “She was a lovely boat but I just couldn’t afford to keep her.”
Things eventually picked up and in 1980 he commissioned Townson to design an 11m version of his own 10.34 Talent design. With the help of Robertson’s exforeman (the late Ron Smith), Rowdon built what became
Sonnet on the deck of his house. With Rowdon working seven days a week and every possible hour, the pair had
Sonnet finished in only 18 months. “My wife and kids never saw me for those 18 months. Most women wouldn’t have put up with that.”
Launched in 1982, Sonnet proved more than worth the effort. But as many boaties appreciate, the perfect boat’s always the next one. For many years Rowdon had lusted after the Bruce Clark-designed, Brin Wilson-built,13.7m Bintang. In 1985 Clark offered Bintang to Rowdon, who accepted with alacrity. The Rowdon family owned her for 10 years and enjoying many happy years cruising the Gulf.
Bintang was sold in 1995.
Two years later Rowdon asked Townson for another design, this time an offshore capable, 12m cruiser. When he started what became Caper in 1997 Rowdon found it impossible to source decent kauri so he imported some Honduras mahogany, which has similar strength and weight to kauri. “It was beautiful timber, clean as a whistle and it bent easily over the sections.”
Caper was built in three skins planking over the typical
Townson backbone of bulkheads, twin longitudinal girders and closely-spaced stringers. Rowdon made only two changes to the plans – different shaped windows for ease of building and a Ray Beale-designed spade rudder instead of the original skeg/rudder arrangement. Townson saw Caper before he died in 2008 and approved the rudder changes.
Rowdon built Caper in a large barn on the couple’s Coatesville property over an 11-year period, taking an estimated 20,000 hours. This writer has been aboard Caper a couple of times and it’s not hard to see where the hours went. She would be one of finest timber yachts ever built in this country. And her beauty goes far, far deeper than just a surface gloss.
Everywhere you look – from the perfectly grain-matched timber planking, the faultless crafting of the interior trim, through to the engine, drive train, plumbing, rudder, keel bolts, chainplates and handrail installation – every detail has been executed to perfection. It’s a sad indictment of modern boating just how few people truly appreciate such attention to detail. Truly a labour of love.
Midway through the building process, Rowdon (tired of not having a boat) bought a half share of Sonnet, then owned by Smith. The pair carried out a restoration in Kelly Archer’s shed, but after Smith died in an accident Sonnet had to be sold. She’s still around in the Bay of Islands.
He launched Caper in 2008 and happily sailed her until 2012. What prompted her sale after such a marathon building effort one might ask? “I got offered a great price and I took it,” he chuckles.
Caper has since been sold again to David Lacky, who by a twist of fate had recently sold Bintang.
Rowdon’s current boat is an Upfold 12m sedan launch named Magic, his first GRP boat and his first launch. As one might expect, she’s a real yachtsman’s launch.
Magic was built by Allan Tongs and Rowdon from the Dave Tuke-owned female moulds. Unlike her four sister boats, Magic was built with resin-infused vinylester, giving a stronger, lighter hull, which is virtually osmosis-proof. Another deviation is
Magic’s propeller tunnel, giving a lower shaft angle and greater efficiency. She’s powered by a 370hp Volvo – her sisters all have more than 400hp.
Apart from the hull and decks, Rowdon built virtually everything else himself and, like Caper, the attention to detail is extraordinary. Besides using Magic as a fast, comfortable cruiser, the Rowdon’s lived aboard her at Gulf Harbour Marina for two years while their new house was being built.
“I’ve liked all our boats, but Magic’s really nice,” said Jill, who has to be in the running for the Most Tolerant Boating Wife Award.
So there you have it; the story of a classic New Zealand tradesman, starting from a garage and building a reputation among the best for attention to detail and uncompromising quality.
And his boats speak for themselves.