HamiltonJet breaks new ground

The new production facility will actually be built on HamiltonJet’s existing site, with an area of 7,320m² and as a response, the company says, to the firm’s continued growth in New Zealand and internationally.

The facility should be opened and fully operational by April 2026, with new equipment including computer numerical control machining equipment.

“As it is with projects of this size and scale, it has been years of planning, designing and consenting to get to this stage,” said HamiltonJet managing director Ben Reed. “HamiltonJet has been going from strength to strength, with increasing demand from the global market, so this is the next exciting chapter in our 85-year history as we look ahead to the future growth of the business.”

The Seawork exhibitor announced the news shortly after launching its data-technology platform ‘Overwatch’, a fleet-monitoring system that gives shore-side staff real-time multi-vessel information.

The platform has been four years in the making and includes an on-board recording device, like an aeroplane black box, which listens to the driveline control signals and records any NMEA2000 signals and AIS transponder so that a full suite of data can be recorded, transmitted and analysed.

At Seawork in 2023, HamiltonJet launched a jet for slow to medium speed craft in a move away from the convention that waterjets propel higher speed craft.

“With the growth in the CTV market we are seeing demand for slow and medium-speeds, and so we have optimised our waterjets to make it much more efficient at those speeds,” Reed said on the launch.