Aeromarine's History

In July,1942 a young  Doug Robb completed his Boatbuilding apprenticeship, the outbreak of war sent him straight into fulltime service in the NZ Army. Shortly after this Doug was manpowered out of the Army to serve as a boatbuilder in Auckland, in what was now considered an essential industry to the war effort.

After the cessation of hostilities, Doug travelled back to Nelson where he started his own boatbuilding business, carrying on in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, who had been operating a boatbuilding yard in the mid 1860s to1880s in the Nelson area.

Post WW2, Nelson was the home of several boatbuilding yards, and during a trip down the South Island in 1948, Doug noticed that the Port of Timaru had a large fishing fleet with no local yard to service all the boats.

 So in 1952, Doug set up a boatbuilding yard on Richie Street at the Port of Timaru.

 This business, known as D F Robb & Co became a well known builder of quality fishing boats and pilot boats that were supplied to clients throughout NZ over the next thirty years.

Doug became very well known throughout the industry as founding president of the Ship, Yacht and Boatbuilding Federation of NZ, dealing with government and others to establish quality controls and specifications, for the New Zealand boatbuilding industry.

 In 1965 Doug’s eldest son Trevor commenced an apprenticeship with the business, at a time of great change within the boatbuilding industry, with new and modern materials now being used. The business at that time built boats from not only the traditional carvel wooden system, but also from Aluminium, Steel, Plywood and Fibreglass. 

By 1977 the business had established in the industrial suburb of Washdyke, on the outskirts of Timaru, and was specializing in composite construction, building mainly high speed fishing vessels, and they also built a series of catamaran offshore powerboats, capable of 100mph+ speeds, that were to revolutionize offshore powerboat racing in NZ.  The business also constructed a specialized lifeboat to Lloyds of London standards.  This business was now known as Aeromarine, to reflect the technology that was now being used.