On Wednesday April 10 a full house was treated to an interesting and informative talk from Mal Hart – the founder and owner of Hart Marine.
Mal started building cedar plank boats in the 1980’s and gradually progressed to building TP 52’s, Volvo boats and the like in high performance composite materials. Yacht names include Voodoo, Ichiban, Ausmaid and Scandia.
Hart Marine moved across to high performance commercial boats 10 years ago when the GFC dried up the performance yacht market. Since then he has built over 30 Pilot and Police Boats for authorities all around Australia and increasingly for international markets. These highly engineered, swift (30-40 knot capable) self righting craft are made in collaboration with French architects Pantocarene. Last year Hart Marine employed up to 90 staff in Mornington.
Recently Mal hart has bought Yaringa Boat Harbour, partly to enable him to shift his operations there. He also has plans to improve Yaringa as a boating destination.
An enthusiastic question and answer session then ensued. Finally Mal agreed to SYC members being aboard his boats when their sea trials are undertaken. George Shaw “auctioned” off the seats with the proceeds to cover 2 youth scholarships on the Young Endeavour.
A great evening all around and many thanks to Mal Hart for finding time in his busy schedule.
