Aeromarine celebrates 60 years of business

A Nelson man’s romance with the seas off Nelson/Marlborough, and with a woman from Maheno, has left Timaru, and indeed New Zealand with a rich legacy of Scottish traditional boatbuilding and seaworthy craft that are still among the best on the planet.

It was a journey of many parts for a young Doug Robb who in 1952 set up Timaru’s first boatbuilding yard in Richie Street, down on the Timaru Harbour.

Sixty years on, the Doug Robb legacy that started with clinker dinghies lofted to a pattern from his former boatbuilding business in Nelson, and ended with a flourishing Timaru composite engineering business now known as Aeromarine Industries, still produces sought-after products of choice for the construction industry, homeowners, and the recreational industry.