NZ boat designer aiming at world

A South Canterbury boat-building company hopes achieving European certification, and exporting their first boat to the Carribean, will see it riding a wave of success.

Director Grant Finlayson decided to start the company as a way to settle down, after a career in marine consulting saw him constantly on the move.

Sixteen months later, he wonders why he did not do it 30 years ago.

Although he is still trying to establish the brand Finlay Boats, it is starting to get some traction, he said.

At the recent Auckland Boat Show, people were purposefully seeking out his stand.

He has teamed up with a well recognised boat designer – Christchurch based Scott Robson – to construct a range of aluminium pontoon boats.

Although many pontoon boats have a flat base, these have a ‘v’, which is advancing technology to produce a better ride, he said.

The boats are being sold as both leisure and commercial crafts, and although they can be used on lakes, Finlayson said he saw them as more of a sea boat.

He spent last summer in the Coromandel with one of his boats and said it ‘‘ went really really nicely’’.

As a way to market his brand, Finlayson sought out CE certification. CE certification is a safety standard marking which states to people across the world the company has complied with European safety standards.

Part of the certification process involved a two-fold check the boat was stable.

The first step had water poured into it to show it could stay afloat.

For the second part, Finlayson had a boat moored at the viaduct in Auckland and paid back packers $10 to be weighed and then sit in various places of the boat.

It paid off, and as a result he believed Finlay Boats was the first pontoon boat to be awarded the CE mark which will hopefully result in opening up markets.

The company has recently exported his first boat to the Carribean.