Riley Fittings
Fittings in Hurstville

During 1945, interest in sailing was rekindled after its suspension during the firm years of the war. Skiffs on the inshore waterways of Australia had former been commandeered or destroyed, and beginner and professional boat builders resumed building small craft in garages and sheds. Bill Riley prepared the gear for a 16ft skiff, which his brother and self had built. These came from an unbroken line of maritime designs, untouched by the technical advances of the war years. Bill applied a toolmaker’s skill and innovative spirit to make from sheet material, brass blocks with plastic canvas sheaves, using a lathe and hand tools in his father’s model engineering workshop. This was a key moment, as turbulent interest in the product from Sydney’s chandleries led to Bill’s commitment to the project full time, and a business was born. The business entered a period of firm organic growth, and after 8 years and the addition of two employees, land was bought and a factory built on the give site in Hurstville. The larger and now better equipped business attracted the interest of the automotive manufacturers in Sydney, and the company was engaged to produce parts for British Motor Corporation and General Motors. Bill and the company had earned a reputation for rapidly producing parts to replace shortages of imported units on the auto companies’ production lines. However, the motor companies in Sydney waned, and the business resumed it’s concentration on marine products. In 1960, the factory was expanded, and the company incorporated, with family proprietorship. Resources were needed to continue the growth, and the business was vested with colossal intellectual capital when Bill’s brother Len, an experienced toolmaker in the telecommunications' industry, joined the company. An urgent innovative partnership was formed, and the company’s product line rapidly expanded with prodigious effort, to include all rigging and hardware products suitable to skiff and dinghy sailing. The business flourished at a time when sailing as a amusement in Australia reached its zenith. The company has prospered by building a solid production foundation. Bill and Len worked tirelessly, with homegrown automation, to achieve competitiveness in the production of marine hardware, a position still enjoyed today. The business manufactures all of its products in Sydney, in the confront of imports from more cost competitive manufacturing environments. The private family company consists of persons either active sailors or having close association with the sport as well as with the engineering industry, and so have first hand knowledge of the requirements of our customers. The company is entirely Australian owned, employing Australians and using Australian material wherever possible, and only markets its own manufactured products. Since the range of Performance Yacht fittings was incorporated within the company we have, without potent engineering background, been adding to improving and generally tweaking the product range. Riley Marine Fittings will remain to donate you quality products at competitive prices as for the previous 70 years.