Who We Are

Danny Martin

Owner and Head Technician

Having grown up in Antigua, Yachting and the Marine world have been part of my life from the beginning. 

After finishing my education in the UK, the next natural step was to make my way into the Yachting industry. I got myself a crossing on a 32m sailboat in Antigua and headed for France. 

The following 10 years were spent as crew onboard yachts of all sizes, from 24m private sail boats to 48m dual season charter motoryachts. Starting as a Deckhand and working my way up to Chief Engineer on a 45m sailing yacht.

During this time I spent several years based in Mallorca working as a shore-based Engineer, doing back to back refits in STP Shipyard. This has given me a great hands on experience of what works, and what doesnt, when it comes to yacht maintenance.

In 2017 it was time to give life at sea a break, and I made the move down to New Zealand. Here I began working at Shotover Jet, a world renown tour company operating jet boats through the canyons of Queenstown. I joined their maintenance team and learned the ins and outs of twin V8 powered jet boats operating in less than a foot of water... A far cry from Yachting.

After this experience I moved into the trailer boat industry, starting at DNA Boatbuilders before moving on to Blackdog Cat Boatbuilders. Here we undertook all aspects of building aluminium fishing boats, from design, CNC cutting and folding, through to fabrication and fitout. I started here as a Fitout Technician before moving up to head of department and soon after into the Workshop Supervisor role, looking after the day to day running of the workshop and 13 staff in 3 departments. 

On top of building boats, we also ran an outboard service department (for which I was the Head Technician) and undertook many other boat modifications and upgrades through the workshop. We were a Honda Marine Dealership, installing more than 40 new outboards a year from 20-250hp and had 50+ boats that we serviced, maintained and upgraded on a regular basis.

Qualifications

• Honda Outboard factory service technician

• AECS auto-electrical diagnostics

• Hamilton Jet 212 training

• MCA Marine Diesel Engineering

• MCA Operational Procedures, Basic Hotel Services and Ship Construction