The Story of Rae Line Boats
The early days of the factory with Peter Rae producing the 3.2 Dinghy’s. We are still based at the same site, with a bit of an increase in the size of the factory.
The early days…
Starting off in the early 1990’s, Peter Rae (the companies name sake) started manufacturing small award winning twin hull dinghy’s for the New Zealand market, alongside completing a wide array of fibreglass repairs, all under the Rae Line brand. However, it wasn’t until May, 1998 after having developed and built the 2.5, 3.2 & 130 C twin hull dinghy’s, that together with Ian Williamson, the brand was formed into a company and managed to secure a contract with Sea Ray (then the largest fibreglass boat manufacturer in the world) to build a few of their models under license for the New Zealand, Australian and South Pacific markets.
The building of NZ made Sea Ray’s…
Starting off with their current 180 OB and 180 BR models, the NZ built Sea Ray boats were a huge success and resulted in more Sea Ray models being sent over for manufacture, those being the 190 CC and the 235 EC. With strong demand for the NZ built Sea Ray’s in both NZ and Australia, work began on developing a new Rae Line model to fit within the market at the time. After 7 years of well produced, high quality boats, Sea Ray reviewed their forward plan and decided to withdraw in early 2006 from the licensing agreement and left Rae Line to continue to produce all their previous models (which were no longer in their current model range) for the New Zealand and Australian markets, all under the Rae Line brand.
A photo taken from the Sea Ray plant in the late 90’s as Peter Rae went over to learn the process of building them.
One of the first 186 C’s off the line, presenting amazing value with is 4-stroke 3.0L stern drive power plant.
The first new Rae Line cuddy cabin…
Along the same timeline, Rae Line released its first new model in a number of years, being the 186 C. With great praise for its price point, quality and offering a 4-stroke stern drive power option while most locally built boats were still running with 2-stroke outboards, the 186 C was a real hit and resulted in over 200 being built in the first few years of production. Along this same time, what was the Sea Ray 235 Express Cruiser got an upgrade to become the Rae Line 235 HT or hardtop. It was the one of the only stern drive powered hard top’s at the time and boasting a large external swim platform, it provided a great base for all kinds of water activities and adventure.
Extending to the UK & Europe market….
With all models now effectively branded as Rae Line and the New Zealand Dollar well placed for an exporting market, new boat dealers were setup in the UK to sell over into those markets. However, with all products entering Europe & the UK, they required to be CE Certified. This was a process that took some time and a good amount of testing to ensure all of the Rae Line models were capable vessels. The process involved completing drop tests on all the models to be exported. These tests were setup with a crane and done locally at the Cam River in Kaiapoi. With all boats passing the test and receiving their CE Certification, Rae Line made its entry into the UK market place for the first time.
The drop test being completed on the Rae Line 180 E Series as part of the CE Certification process.
Rhys on board the Rae Line 205 OB, being the first full new model developed by the Rae Line team since the 186 C
The rise of a new era…
However, all good times come to an end and as the global recession hit NZ in 2008, the production started to slow off to a point where the company went into an extended slow period and as staff started to transition off into other industries and opportunities, the production slowly ground to a halt at the beginning of 2011.
With Rhys Williamson (son of Ian) recently returning to NZ after completing a stint as a Mechanical Engineer at Sea Ray’s PD&E centre in Merritt Island, Florida the opportunity arose to learn to build boats from the ground up and kick Rae Line back into a bit of action with the help of Peter Rae and some ex-staff members. Rhys and Peter started to build and repair boats again at the end of 2011 and with a few orders starting to come through from both NZ and Australia, and having run as a 2-man team for the whole of 2012, it was time to bring on a few new team members. 2013 represented a new start, with new staff coming on board for the first time in a few years and Peter Rae moving on from Rae Line to focus on his farming activity, leaving Ian, Rhys and the new team to start progress towards a new future for the brand.
Product development began again…
With product development at the fore for the new Rae Line team, it was not long before new developments kicked into progress. Starting off with re-developing our 186 CX model into the new 186 OB in 2014. This created a complete change to the aft end of the 186 model and allowed the outboard version to offer up more internal seating, a larger fuel capacity and when powered by the new range of 150hp 4-stroke outboards, a smooth, quick and efficient sports boat targeted for a range of uses.
The slow down after the global recession offered a chance to reset and work on developing the 186 OB.
The first 186 CX getting fitted with its new extended swim platform.
The introduction of in-house Upholstery…
Having contracted to Rae Line for a few years, David Napier came onboard in 2014 as our first in-house upholsterer and expanded our ability to offer a premium upholstery offering. With innovation at the fore, Rae Line became the first NZ based manufacturer to offer a premium diamond stitched upholstery finish. Along side that Dave went about creating all new upholstery patterns for an improved range of seating & styles that further enhanced the reputation of any Rae Line that meant you were getting the best in both design and quality.
Product improvements carry on…
With the 186 outboard now in production and being well received in both NZ and Australia, the attention was turned to updating and upgraded the existing model range. This started in 2015 with the 186 CX where a long time Rae Line owner had really wanted their boat upgraded to include a new extended platform for a more user friendly space out the back of the boat. After designing & molding a new platform specifically for the 186 CX, the first one was built and fitted to the customers boat. With plenty of interest from the many 186 CX owners out there, this addition proved to be a hit and it was transitioned into most new 186 CX builds to come from the factory.
Dave completing the upholstery process on a glovebox panel for a 185 OB.
A full upgrade of our 185 OB…
Carrying on product improvements in 2015, we continued by introducing new gelcoat colours and updated gelcoat masking templates into our lamination process which allowed for a diverse range of colour schemes and masking lines.
Alongside that, the windscreen was updated to offer a new sleeker look with a longer side profile.
Finally, the interior was completely upgraded and we became the first NZ manufacturer to offer diamond stitching as a standard interior feature to our upholstery fit out. Coupled with a new, more comfortable, aft seating setup and upgraded bucket seats, the interior was transformed into the class leading sports boat it is today with further refinements since.
The first of the new 185 OB updated builds featured a blue hull side in between a custom masking of the hull & deck. Alongside that, it was the first build to feature new diamond stitching on the interior.
More & more customizations…
As development was still at the fore for the Rae Line team, the skills of customization were put to good use as we started to run up a good record of customizing boats to suit different needs. With most of them being based around the addition of extended swim platforms, the ability to tailor a solution to a customers needs was met with a lot of enthusiasm to ensure a quality outcome was met.
A fully custom platform was built & fitted to this Bayliner Discovery with the customer now able to use the full width of the boat vs the previous small boarding platform isolated to the starboard side.
A new model built from the ground up…
Working away hard in the background, the team had been slowly developing what would be the first new model from the ground up since the 186 C. This project resulted in the 205 OB, our new 6.4m bowrider, offering an incredibly smooth riding hull, coupled with all the new design features and technology to compete with the style, design & premium fit out of any other bowrider in the 20ft range on the market.
The first 205 OB build was completed and ready for delivery to the customer at the end of 2020. Picture from the Boating NZ review of the 205 OB completed in December that year.
The Boom of the Covid Era…
With the 205 being released in late 2020 after the initial round of the Covid pandemic, the boom of the Covid period began and with it an expansion of the team and facility to handle the increased demand. With people somewhat isolated in New Zealand and record low interest rates, the ability to get into a boat and out on the water was made to be an easy decision. With new team members starting and others moving to different roles, it proved to be a hectic time that saw a big lift in orders and demand for new boats, while at the same time becoming increasingly evident that, more under covered space, better systems and training processes were needed to keep up.
With the Covid era boom, more undercover space was met in the form of a container shelter to help house the molds in between production cycles.
Expansion required …
Being one of the few boat builders to complete all the upholstery in-house, our existing Assembly workshop had just become too tight with the increased build schedule and trying to squeeze a full upholstery department in with the assembly area. The decision was made to increase the footprint of the shed and add in a dedicated upholstery department to offer a better flow through the assembly area along with a very well equipped upholstery area to handle the production schedule and customer repairs coming through.
The early stages of construction of a new 230 square meter dedicated upholstery department.
A dedicated upholstery department …
Having been designed around the upholstery team and their requirements, this dedicated extension to the facility proved to be invaluable for both increasing the quality and productivity of the team. Ever since 2014 when David Napier became our first full time upholsterer, the idea of having a fully dedicated upholstery area seemed a pipe dream, but with the extension completed, it was a testament to Dave and all our upholsterers who have come through, now led by Toni, to the work put in to continually improve and offer the world class premium upholstery in all new Rae Line boats. Along side that, we now have a much greater capacity to offer upholstery repairs, refits, canvas repairs & upgrades!
The completed upholstery department is very well equipped to handle any and all range of upholstery or canvas making tasks and offers a lot of additional storage for keeping materials on hand.