Harrison Float Boats 2.78

It must have been 2010 on a trip out on Banks Peninsula with a good friend of mine, Stu, from Christchurch.
We had checked the forecast and decided on heading to the southern bays as the wind had been blowing from the North, so it seemed the obvious choice.
We were greeted with flat conditions so wetsuits on, we swam from the shore, heading down the long narrow bay that is Te Oka. Anyone that has been to Te Oka will know that it is indeed very long and takes a good 200m to get out of the muddy bottomed still waters before you start to hit the fishy country.
We managed to nail a couple of good butters and decided to look for some crays. We were rewarded with finding some of the biggest crays we'd ever seen and I was stoked to have remembered to attach some cray nooses to my torpedo float so it was just a matter of looping them on by their tails for the swim back.
It soon became apparent to me after the first hundred meters of battling the outgoing tide, dragging the less than streamlined sea anchor of over-sized crays, that there had to be an easier way of dragging your catch around. This trip was enough for me to decide to do something about it.

After scribbling some ideas down on paper and making life-sized cardboard models I got down to making the mold at work and having my trade cert in machining and tool-making this was still no easy feat. I would have easily clocked up 100 hours on the first mold only to find the initial float a little too small so with mods to the mold I finally came up with the current design which suits perfectly. Not too big to take up excess space in the boat but big enough to fit most South Island species inside.

The benefits soon became apparent after the first dive, pulling it through the water loaded with Butterfish and Moki was a breeze and it was great to be able to grab some Pauas and crays whilst targeting fish too - something that is difficult with a standard float set up.
Seals no longer frequented my ongoing dives and I put this down to the obvious lack of blood in the water.

My friends soon wanted one and it wasn't long before the word got out and I was selling them around the country and later Australia.

So that's the story behind the creation and it's great to see other people enjoy the benefits of gathering seafood using a float boat or 'Plat' as they are known in some circles.