The early days…

Starting off in the early 1990’s, Peter Rae 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.