Allan Tongs Boatbuilders, the Auckland builder of the Elite AT43 sports sedan, has signed an exclusive Australia-wide representation agreement with d’Albora Yacht Brokers. The deal gives the family-owned business its first formal presence across the Tasman, opening a market it has watched from a distance for years.
Under the agreement, d’Albora, Australia’s largest marina group, becomes the sole authorised representative for the Elite AT43 across Australia, leveraging its national network of sixteen marinas in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The AT43 already appears on d’Albora’s books as available to order, ahead of first deliveries into the country.
For Nigel Tongs, who runs the business with his wife Ester, the agreement answers a demand the company has felt but never had the means to serve.
“We’ve had steady enquiry from Australian buyers for a long time, without the presence to do anything about it,” says Nigel Tongs. “There’s real unmet demand over there for a boat built properly, by hand, to the owner’s own brief. This gives us the reach to finally meet it, and it’s a genuinely exciting step for a business that’s spent forty-three years building one boat at a time.”
Adam Hickey, Sales Manager and Senior Broker at d’Albora Yacht Brokers, says Australian interest in the AT43 has already outpaced supply.
“The AT43 addresses a significant unmet need in the Australian market,” says Hickey. “There’s a clear opportunity for a vessel like this, one that’s genuinely custom-built at a production price. Moreover, the Allan Tongs name carries real weight with people who understand what quality construction actually looks like. We expect demand to build quickly once the boat is in the water here.”
The agreement lands as Allan Tongs Boatbuilders scales up at home, lifting annual production from two vessels to three or more under a new manufacturing strategy developed with business consultant Steve Parker. The Australian market gives that expanded output somewhere to go, and the two moves together mark the most significant period of change in the company’s history.
The Elite AT43 is built to bridge the gap between a production boat and a fully bespoke motor yacht. Buyers work through the same immersive design process Allan Tongs offers New Zealand clients, choosing everything from engine configuration to cabinetry and interior finishes, while the three-cabin GRP hull is sized to fit standard 13.5 and 14 metre marina berths on either side of the Tasman.
d’Albora Yacht Brokers operates from marinas spanning Airlie Beach to Melbourne, backed by the marina infrastructure of parent company d’Albora Marinas. For Allan Tongs, the partnership offers a ready-made sales channel into Australia’s east coast boating market without the cost of setting up an operation from scratch, and a broker network already fielding enquiries for the boat.
About Allan Tongs Boatbuilders
Allan Tongs Boatbuilders is a family-owned New Zealand boatbuilder with more than four decades of custom motor yacht construction. The company builds the Elite AT43, designed by Bill Upfold of Elite Marine, at its Auckland yard.
About d’Albora Yacht Brokers
d’Albora Yacht Brokers is Australia’s leading vessel brokerage, operating across sixteen marina locations in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria as part of the d’Albora Marinas network.
