Industry Marine manufacturing | Founded 1959 | |
Fate Ceased ops, deregistered Defunct 15 June 1982 (1982-06-15) Headquarters Bankstown, New South Wales,
Australia Key people Alan Payne
Frank Bailey | ||
de Havilland Marine was a division of Hawker de Havilland Australia Pty. Ltd. which is now owned by Boeing Australia and known as Boeing Aerostructures Australia.
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Following the downturn of aviation manufacturing in the late 1950s, the Australian subsidiary of de Havilland looked to produce products utilizing the skills and knowledge available to the company. It found a ready market in the production of a range of small aluminium boats made using techniques similar to those employed in the aircraft industry. de Havilland Marine's designers were headed by naval architect Alan Payne, designer of Australia's first America's Cup (1962 America's Cup) challengers Gretel and Gretel II. de Havilland Australia built the mast and rig for Gretel.
By 1965, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the marine division had produced 15,000 craft of all types, with a projected annual production of 5,000 craft per year.
de Havilland Marine (Large Craft) (registered company number F11799) was located on the waters edge at 5-7 Burroway Road, Homebush Bay. Due to a lack of new business it closed its doors in 1982. In the years prior it manufactured various large aluminium craft for both the local and international market. These included Carpentaria Class Patrol Boats for Burma & the Solomon Islands, Titan Work Boats for the New South Wales (NSW) government, and the hulls of the Nepean Bell which still operates on the Nepean River in NSW.
A dedicated F/book page has been created to preserve information and many pic's of DHM at Homebush Bay. It can be accessed by the title of Dehavilland Marine. (No gap in the spelling of Dehavilland) - David Woods.
History
de Havilland Australia opened in Melbourne in March 1927 as de Havilland Aircraft Pty. Ltd. In 1930 the company moved to Bankstown (a suburb of Sydney), where it acted as an agency for the parent company, with assembly, repair and spares facilities for its range of aircraft. Aircraft design and full manufacture by de Havilland Australia (DHA) did not take place until the Second World War. Following the end of the war, the Australian company diversified into an aircraft sales agency and engineering and marine craft manufacturing. In 1960, following the takeover of the parent company de Havilland Holdings Ltd of England by the Hawker Siddley Group, de Havilland Australia was renamed Hawker de Havilland. The company is now owned by Boeing Australia, who announced on 6 February 2009 that Hawker de Havilland would be known as Boeing Aerostructures Australia.
Marine craft
de Havilland Marine produced the Corsair, designed by Alan Payne, following trials from 1966 to 1976. By 1976, the Corsair had become a national class, sailed in five Australian states and Papua New Guinea, with its production continuing to this day.
Leon Simons and Bryan Dodd from de Havilland Marine took a de Havilland "Sea Topper" from Sydney to Melbourne (a distance of 700 miles), on 8 July 1965.
Ben Lexcen and Craig Whitworth of Miller and Whitworth joined with de Havilland Marine in 1964 to design, produce and market a range of aluminium yacht spars which started to replace the traditional wooden spars.
In 1960, de Havilland Marine obtained a license to produce a power boat using a water jet propulsion system developed by Bill Hamilton, founder of C.W.F. Hamilton & Co of New Zealand. A prototype hull was equipped with a propulsion unit and was tested at Rose Bay, New South Wales.
Manufacturing process
The first stage in their manufacturing process was to cut the hull skins, and then other sheet metal parts were cut, and shaped using a template on a radial arm router. Sections were then formed by a brake press and swaging, to form the gunwales and hull folds. Extruded sections of the hull were initially formed in a half-hard condition for ease of working, later being placed in a curing oven to bring them to full-hard condition. The skin sections were welded on wooden jigs on which the seats, gunwales, decks and extruded sections were positioned and riveted into position. The boat was then tested in a pressure tank to reveal any problems. The craft was then painted in a temperature-controlled paint shop. de Havilland also produced the polyurethane flotation material used in the boats which shaped and riveted into position. The company was noted for its use of rivets to join sections of the craft instead of the more common use of welding. In its advertisements, de Havilland Marine referred to this process by the Sealomatic name.
Logo and branding
The company logo was similar to other members of the de Havilland group in that the letters D and H were superimposed on the wings of an aircraft, which in turn were overlaid onto the design of a ship's anchor. A number of logo variants were used during the marine division's existence in newspaper advertisements. During 1966, the division was styled Hawker de Havilland Marine often followed by the craft range, i.e. Feathercraft Division.
Range of craft
de Havilland Marine manufactured craft from yachts and sportboats to workboats: from the Toppercraft range, Sea Topper, Standard Topper, Topper Cub, and Topper Playboy; from the Feathercraft range, Apache, Bobcat, Comanche, Mustang, Pawnee, and Seminole; from the Yacht range, Corsair, Gipsy 3 m (10 ft) cat-rigged, and Vagabond; other craft include the Customs boat, Hercules, John, and Norseman.