Flatout Boat’s quick step to market

Boat builder Gavin Ager has been working “flat out” taking his folding boat design company Flatout Boats Pty Ltd to its acquisition by listed Canning Vale-based advanced materials group, Quickstep Holdings Ltd.

A boat builder of 30 years, Mr Ager’s journey began four years ago when he was approached by his father, who was passionate about caravans and wanted him to build a portable boat to rival the inflatable and aluminum dinghies on the market.

Mr Ager’s Flatout Boat is believed to be the first rigid folding boat available in the world market using new technology that incorporates a unique patented geometry.

In effect, it enables the front to bend up and form the shape of a conventional bow as it is being opened from flat position.

Fully assembled in three minutes, the boat is available in lengths from 2.4 metres up to 3.3 metres and can accommodate an eight horsepower outboard motor, depending on the configuration. It is currently manufactured using four premium grade composite panels made from resin infusion, providing strength and light weight.

The entire boat folds down to a 10 centimetre thickness by 62 centimetre width and is very stable on water, with just 48 kilograms in weight to its frame.

“My father asked for a serious boat and I built it,” Mr Ager told WA Business News. “To date, all of our competitors have made boats out of plastic with little reinforcement. Our boats outperform aluminum dinghies being wider, deeper, stronger and 40 per cent lighter than aluminum face boats.”

Mr Agers said the family spent $240,000 of their capital to build three test models for public launch at a Mandurah boat show, a move that generated wide public interest in its folding component.

Bibra Lake-based Flatout Boats has now sold about 100 boats around Australia with 80 per cent of sales to the caravan and camping industries.

Commercial production of the boats by Quickstep will start in late 2006 with a patented manufacturing process that will include thermoplastic composite panels on the boats produced more rapidly and in a more cost-effective manner.

“Over the last 12 months I was approached by three companies wanting to sub-lease the rights to manufacture. I was looking for a company that had the technology to take my design further, “Mr Ager said.

“After almost eight months of negotiation, Quickstep emerged as the best candidate in this regard,”

Quickstep managing director Nick Noble said the company would initially establish a commercial manufacturing facility in Perth with a Quickstep QS2OTP production machine to produce panels using the thermoplastic composite material.

“We expect this will open up a whole range of new, vertically integrated markets for Quickstep’s flat panel business, including numerous marine, automotive and commercial opportunities,” he said.

Quickstep Holdings Ltd listed on the ASX in 2005 following a successful $6 million IPO to underpin the worldwide commercialisation of its composites manufacturing technology.

Its patented Quickstep Process is an innovative curing technology that significantly reduces the cost and time involved in the production of composites compared with conventional process.