Quintrex Boats To Be Made In New Zealand

The Age

Friday October 14, 1994

CHRISTOPHER de FRAGA

THE Australian aluminium boat maker, Quintrex, has made an agreement to have its boats made under licence in New Zealand by Brown's Marine of Hamilton.

The boats will be shipped partly built as kits in a container to New Zealand from Quintrex's Gold Coast boat-building factory.

Brown's Marine has two retail boat yards, one in Hamilton and the other in Auckland.

Brown's Marine has been building Sea Nymph fibreglass boats for five years and has a network of dealers for this range. To take on the Quintrex boat-building franchise, Brown's Marine has relinquished its franchise for Ramco boats.

Brown's Marine has formed a new company, Quintrex New Zealand, to both assemble the boats and market them. The boats will be built in a new factory alongside the Sea Nymph fibreglass boat factory.

This has been done to allow both factories to use the same rigging fitout and predelivery system.

The Quintrex boats to be assembled include the Sea Raider, Coast Ranger, Dart and Bay Hunter models and all will be painted rather than left in their raw marine aluminium state.

Both Brown's Marine and Quintrex are now developing variations of the Quintrex models specifically for the New Zealand market.

A six-cylinder in-line diesel marine engine built by Volvo Penta has had most of its ancilliary systems revised to become the TAMD163P Third Generation for the coming season.

The direct-injection engine has both turbocharging and aftercooling.

Power output has been raised to 568 kW - 515 kW for the light duty version - at 2100 rpm.

Peak torque is an impressive 2565 Nm and the torque is well spread through the engine's speed range. The new 13-millimetre plungers in the high-pressure fuel-injection pump feed seven-hole injectors. The combustion system changes are backed by a larger turbocharger and a new inlet manifold to suit it.

To take the extra forces from the higher power developed, the engine has a reinforced cylinder block and heads, new pistons and rings and connecting rods with bigger bearing surfaces.

There are also harder inlet and exhaust-valve materials used to enhance long-term reliability.

The engine has been designed for higher speed work boats, patrol craft and rescue boats.

By keeping the new engine's overall width down to 1.3 metres, Volvo Penta has allowed boat builders to fit two instead of one more easily into the engine space available in these craft.