Of course, Whakatane’s Legacy Marine is hardly a boatbuilding newbie, since it’s owned by the same people who have brought multi-award-winning Extreme aluminium trailer boats to markets in New Zealand and overseas for almost 20 years. Extreme Boats manufactures around 300 trailer boats a year, one-third of them going to Australia, the Pacific Islands, USA, and Europe. The new, purpose-built Legacy Marine facility is right next door to Extreme Boats’ existing factory.
The L70 is currently the largest vessel in the Legacy range, which also includes L35, L45 and L52 models. Paragon, built for company founder Glenn Shaw and his family, is the first L70 launched. It’s Shaw’s dream boat, constructed to exacting standards to fulfil the family’s desire for extended South Pacific sportfishing and cruising adventures. The Shaws have extensive offshore experience with their previous vessels, the lessons learned hugely informing the L70’s design and fitout.
Paragon was tied up to the town wharf in the Whakatane River with barely a metre to spare between her bow and transom and neighbouring boats, and with the flood tide pushing strongly up the river. Todd Shaw, who shared skipper’s duties with his younger brother Ben, calmly pulled Paragon away from the wharf using the Twin Disc Express Joystick System (EJS) proportional thrust control outside on the flybridge’s aft deck.
That such a directly sideways off the wharf and into the river’s current, where Todd spun the big sport-fisher in her own length and proceeded downriver to the sea. Docking later that day was just as easy.
