Mark Thorpe Boatbuilding established 1990.
Established in 1990 the business has produced boats, foils, spars, repairs, fit outs, tunning advice ect in the sailing industry for 23 years.
Starting with a range of custom made foils for many classes and then with our Int Moths. Our Moths were the first narrow hull boats to be built in Australia and quickly domminated the class winning World and National titles. Around this period we were approached to build 18′ skiffs for the Grand Prix 18′ skiff racing series for Pudential and Xerox. Our Moths continued to develope and we built the first all carbon boats in Australia, carbon fibre was new to the market at this time and we were one of the first to use it in boats and foils. Next was the development of a carbon mast, there wasn’t any carbon mast builders at this time so we developed a mast with the assistance of a company in Adelaide making simmilar products. These carbon masts were one of the first to be used on any dinghy in Australia and dominated the Moth class for 15 years. We also developed the pocket luff rig and the T-foil rudders in the Moth class. Our range of foils continued to grow as we used carbon and foam composite to produce lighter and stiffer foils, they were used to win many national titles in a variety of classes.
In 1997 we introduced our new Moth design “Hungry Tiger” which dominated the class winning 4 consecutive world titles in 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003. It also won 6 Australian titles and many other national and state titles around the world. The “Hungry Tiger” still holds the most titles won by a single design in the Moth class. We were able to export the “Hungry Tiger” into Japan, UK, Europe and the US and the company received an export market development grant from the Australian government in 2003.
In 2000 we built new moulded Tornado centre boards for John Forbes and Darren Bundock which they used to win the silver medal at the Sydney Olympics.
In 2004 we produced new moulds for the NS14 and Flying Eleven classes, we have produced over 100 boats between these classes.
In 2007 we were approached by the Australian sailing Team to develope new 470 centre boards. A full development program was undertaken to produce the fastest foils possible and this resulted in Australia winning 2 gold medals in the 470 class at the Beijing Olympics using our foils. Our involvement with the Australian Sailing Team continued with further 470 foil development to include the rudder in the lead up to the London Olympics. We also joined the team to provided the boat builder support role and travelled with the team to the Olympic test event in 2011 and the London Olympics in 2012. Our 470 foils were again used to secure Gold in the mens 470. Our involment with the team will now continue through to Rio.
We now have a range of CNC cut foil moulds for a variety of classes with the most recent being the A-Class Cat.