Fibreglass Pioneer

"In the beginning, I was against building boats because Arnold Francis, who built the first fibreglass production boats in New Zealand under the name France Craft, appeared to have the market tied up. They were a bit rough, but solidly built and I didn't think there was an opening for another fibreglass boat builder in New Zealand."

But in 1959, friends convinced Frank to take a mould off a clinker dinghy built by Brian Wall.

"Before we knew it, we had dealers in Christchurch, Nelson and Rotorua wanting to buy them. They were sold as the Fi-Glass Fisherman and they kept us going pretty well in the early years."

The Fisherman was the first of more than 10,000 boats Fi-Glass has built so far.

"We decided to build something bigger than the 11ft Fisherman, so we produced the 16 ft 6in Regent that was initially sold with a timber deck in either outboard or jet boat form. As a jet boat, it was a devil of a boat and spun out badly, but it could carry a huge load and the deer hunters used them to bring out venison before the advent of helicopters."

Frank says jet boats were an important part of his early manufacturing years because the Government's import licensing system restricted the number of outboards available.

"Until outboards came off licence, we had to build jet boats because there were not enough outboards coming into the country to base a boat-manufacturing business on. Hamilton Jet manufactured jet units in Christchurch, and they could be matched to a car engine and sold on the local market."

In 1964, Fi-Glass produced the 14ft 6in outboard-powered Firecrest, which was also available with a second deck designed for an inboard and jet unit.

"We sold the Firecrest to Hamilton Jet, who marketed it as the Jet 42, and we sold it in jet form as the Sabrejet.

"They went out the door in steady numbers and there was a huge choice of colour - red deck, white hull and black upholstery. Ernie Shuttleworth in Nelson sold two a week and Bill Hamilton in Rotorua sold quite few. We produced 364 hulls out of that mould, which was pretty good in those days."

But Fi-Glass did not only build powerboats. Frank has been a keen sailor since learning to sail at 13, and he was support crew for Peter Mander and Jack Cropp when they won New Zealand's first Olympic sailing gold medal in Melbourne in 1956. He is a life member of the Canterbury Yacht and Motor Boat Club, a past vice president of Christchurch Yacht Club and he keeps a Farr 1020 in Picton.

Given Frank's strong association with sailing, it was only natural Fi-Glass would diversify into yachts.

"I built a fibreglass Yachting World catamaran, won the New Zealand catamaran championships in 1964 and managed to sell seven boats as a result. Business was pretty tough at the time and the sales kept us going during a difficult time."

In 1960, Mander and Brian O'Neil convinced Frank to take a mould of Alan Ballyntine's strip-planked cedar Finn, which was very quick.

"Over the years, we built 64 fibreglass Finns, about 100 Phase 2s, a little more than 300 Optimists, Moths, R-Class and a Junior Cherub that won the national champs. We went on to build the Cooke brothers' Freedom trailer yacht and, with a redesigned keel, we re-badged it the Fi-Glass Rover, which Paul Pritchett won the nationals in."

Frank says fibreglass construction has changed very little since the '60s, although the resins and glass are much better to work with.

"When I started, there was only one resin on the market and we made everything out of it, including our own gelcoat. There is a huge range of resins available now and New Zealand resins have improved to the point that they are as good as, if not better than, any in the world. They wet out much easier and are far more user friendly. We are not building the boats any lighter, just striving for greater efficiently and continuous improvement."

The next significant powerboat design after the Firecrest was the Fireball, released in 1968. Demand for this boat triggered expansion and Frank built a new factory on land he had purchased in1967. Fi-Glass still operates out of this Dyers Rd factory and the complex has expanded to include manufacturing, workshop and retail facilities.

The factory was built specifically for manufacturing fibreglass boats and the gel-coating bays, and laminating and finishing departments are heated by diesel heaters to ensure consistently good quality. At its peak in the '70s, Fi-Glass employed more than 100 people and the scale of production made it worthwhile to install a bulk resin silo heated and equipped with an automatic mixer. It is not used today, but Frank says it allowed him to have specific resins blended and, at the height of production, this gave a huge advantage over his competitors.

"We were the only ones with this capability and are currently talking to resin companies about using the bulk silo again."

Frank says the high point of production was during the Norman Kirk years around 1974-76.

"It was very exciting period, because you could sell boats as fast as you could produce them. One summer, the factory produced 22 boats a week for 12 weeks and production totalled more than 650 boats for the year."

Five Fi-Glass models - the Viscount, Scamp, Fireball, Warrior and Dominator - have exceeded 1000 production units.

"The Fireball was our biggest-volume boat and taught me a lot about mass production, because when you have three moulds producing 15 boats per week and still can't match demand, you learn pretty quick. For several years, the Warrior was the most popular 5m boat in New Zealand and even today, they are sought after second hand. The Dominator didn't sell well initially, but that changed and to date, we have produced more than 3000. I'm still staggered by this fact, however, 3000 boaties can't be wrong."

The Viscount was a big boat for its day and competed against the Cresta Craft 19 and the Haines Hunter V198.

"We produced six Viscounts a week for three or four months at one stage. Many were powered by stern drives, because there was a sales tax on outboards and marine engines, but a loop-hole meant it didn't apply to the stern leg. As a result, a 165hp Mercruiser-powered Viscount sold for the same price as an 80hp outboard-powered version."

Fi-Glass was famous for its offshore race boats in the late '60s and 70s, and Frank says he started racing powerboats to promote his products.

"The first time was in a Jet 42 I took off the showroom floor, and we raced it around Lyttelton Harbour and got sore bums."

"Then I took a Fireball Jet down to Dunedin and once we produced the Lightning, many people wanted to race it. Our first dedicated race boat was a Lightning - Jack Gallagher supplied the motor and I supplied the boat. We put the seats at the back, the fuel tank in the middle and a water ballast tank at the front, a first in offshore racing.

"The second Lightning race boat was the first twin-135hp rig. In those days, we had to have our race motors tied down with big clamps, because the engine mounts would break otherwise. You had to look at the weather and set the engine trim before going out on the course.

"We raced because the public could identify their Fi-Glass boat with our race boats, which were out of the same mould. It was great for business and in 1984, the last year we competed, we ran four factory boats in four different classes. Ian Todd won a six-hour marathon in Auckland in a 135hp-powered Fireball, and my old boat Mr Fi-Glass won a six-hour marathon when it was powered by twin 150s and called Miss Comsec. But when it became apparent the one-off racing catamarans would take over the circuit, we pulled out because there was no promotional value for Fi-Glass if we had to campaign a custom-built cat to win."

Frank made the most of marketing their race teams.

"Before each race, a journalist would write a story about the race boats and who was driving what, and the local papers usually published that on the Friday before the race. That was our marketing strategy and it worked very well for us at the time."

Frank concentrated on manufacturing until1972, when he and three partners started Christchurch Marine a few doors down from the Fi-Glass factory.

"It was set up to be a Johnson dealer, which was a fool thing because there were four Johnson and Evinrude wholesalers in New Zealand. They were all aligned with somebody who had licence and they competed fiercely against one another.

Frank sold out of Christchurch Marine and started Mr Boats on the Dyers Rd site in 1980.

"I set up Mr Boats to have a second go at Johnson and we got Evinrude. But Greg Fenwick approached me to sell Yamaha. I knew Greg very well from his days as manager of International Marine, because the company had sold Fi-Glass boats.

"So Mr Boats ended up with Yamaha and Mercury outboard franchises, and we dropped Evinrude. Fi-Glass had een involved with Mercury ever since the Water Ski Association received import licences for two outboard engines per year. We supplied their ski boats, they supplied the engines and after a year, we sold the boat and motor for them. It was all driven by import licences, which were hard to get hold of and a licence to print money when you did."

Frank expanded the Mr Boats retail outlets to include one in Timaru and another in Blenheim.

"I thought the branch in Blenheim would be a great excuse to go to the family bach in Picton, but I ended up doing more work and not getting there at all. I closed the Blenheim branch in 1989, because I found it too busy managing three retail yards and a large factory."

Griff Simpson, Frank's oldest son, is now managing director of Fi-Glass Products and Mr Boats. In his 69th year, Frank is taking life a little easier and hoping to spend more time at his Marlborough Sounds bach, where he also keeps a Formula 3000 Sports. In recognition of the number of boats he has produced, the Formula is named Mr Fi-Glass 10,000.

Frank still puts in time at the factory and plays an active roll in the Boating Industry Association (BIA) as South Island president.

"The title is not important, I just try to represent the South Island members as best I can. I feel it is important to offer the industry from which I have prospered something in return. Changing the date of the South Island boat show was one thing I achieved. The earlier date gives manufactures more time to meet orders before the Christmas rush."

Frank Simpson set up in his mother's garage in 1958 to make fibreglass washtubs, vanity bowls and baths. His first contact with fibreglass had been in England a year earlier, when he helped make fibreglass car components.

This article is reproduced with permission of Trade-a-Boat Magazine  2002- by Geoff Green Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited