Third time’s a charm: Hawke’s Bay boatbuilder sails into success

Lee Cummings' build for Paul Mayo has won the prize for best all-purpose family boat up to eight metres at the NZ Boating Awards. Photo / Warren Buckland

A Hawke’s Bay boatbuilder is celebrating a hat-trick off the back of the NZ Boating Awards held in Auckland last month.

Lee Cummings, who co-founded Machina Supply Co in Pakipaki, won the prize for best all-purpose family boat up to 8 metres. It was his third prize at the event in three years.

Cummings and his team claimed victory with their Machina 731 custom build, which had been heavily driven by customer collaboration.

The 7.5m beast looks to be the ultimate water sports entertainer, with its tank-like build housing a toilet, a stove and plenty of storage space.

“As all of our builds are tailor-made for the customer, this spec has been driven by the customer,” Cummings said.

The customer in this case was Hawke’s Bay local Paul Mayo, who said he was stoked with the boat and was looking forward to getting out on it.

The Machina team had input into the decision of what elements were on the boat, but Cummings said ultimately it was down to the customer.

“It was a big team effort from the guys here. We’re only a small team so there’s only a handful of us here.

“We have around four or five builds a year and the process is obviously quite intimate with the customer.”

Lee Cummings and customer Paul Mayo with the award-winning Machina 731. Photo / Warren Buckland

Cummings said the boat had some special features as well.

“The uniqueness of our design is that we have integrated the pontoons inside the boat so they are more or less hidden. You get the performance of an offshore monohull but with the safety and stability of a pontoon boat.”

Because the company doesn’t build in large volumes, it allows lots of adaptations and changes to be made.

“The level of finish we are at now is becoming nationally and internationally recognised, which is cool.”

The recognition is such that four groups from Australia flew in to see the Machina builds at the boat show.

“We’re in early-stage talks to do builds with them as well,” Cummings said.

The all-purpose family category is a tough one to win, as the boat cannot be built specifically for one purpose.

This bodes well for Cummings and his team, who specialise in making multi-purpose vessels.

“The thing with our boats is that it’s such a large-ticket item for our customers that you really want them to be as universal as possible.

“They are whatever you want them to be: a heavy-duty game boat or one for eating cheese and crackers on the next day.”

With three years of success behind him, there’s no doubt Cummings is ready to continue producing innovative and award-winning vessels for the years ahead.

“People are expecting something quite cool every year because we’ve brought something unique every year.”