Review – Auckland On Water Boat Show

Auckland, New Zealand is home to Maven. Our marine industry association, NZ Marine hosts a fabulous on-water boat show here each year in the city’s popular Viaduct Harbour. We thought it a great show and venue to showcase Maven’s latest ranges.

Peter Busfield, NZ Marine’s executive director, summed up the show well, as being a showcase of “… so much of our industry – New Zealand technology, New Zealand design and good old Kiwi innovation”.

We had a great time introducing Maven to the Auckland market, and unveiling our brand new Pacific Stickbait and Mechanical Jigging models, and Tasman all-round boat rods.

It was an excellent forum for answering your questions about Maven – the business, and our fishing rods. Here’s a summary of our most frequently asked questions and answers:

Where are these rods made?
Maven has a 1000 square metre facility just north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, in the village of Birkenhead.

Tell me more about the company
We’ve been designing and manufacturing top end fishing rod ‘blanks’ (the shaft of a fishing rod) for 15 years, under the brand CTS. Most of our product is exported to the USA and Europe, and is highly regarded in the custom rod building market. We’ve been asked for many years to build finished rods for our customers, and we decided to do so with the launch of Maven in November 2014.

The rods look so different to anything I’ve seen. What was the inspiration for them?
We really wanted to create something unique and different with Maven. Being the blank manufacturer, we could do something pretty special with the blank, both in its technical design and its aesthetic. We came up with a beautiful pinstripe design which runs the full length of the rod (even on our very finest tips – no mean feat!), which is achieved with three coats of paint. From the outset, we wanted Maven to feel very ‘vintage’, while being extremely high tech. The classic ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. Our inspiration for the initial Maven colour story, Sea Foam Green, was from a 1950s New Zealand kitchen.

What is this spiral wrapped rod?
When under load, conventional overhead rods have a natural tendency to twist or torque, trying to turn the tip downward. Spiral wrap (also known as ‘acid wrap’) is the placement of guides to start out on top of the blank, then rotate around the rod, leaving the final guides and tip under the blank. Wrapping the guides this way is designed to eliminate twisting of the rod under load.

How is a Maven rod better than a reasonable one I’d buy from a fishing store?
We’d sum it up in two words. Sensitivity and soul. Our rod blank is the powerhouse of the fishing rod, and we’re experts at designing and building them. They’re regarded as some of the best in the world. They’re extremely light and sensitive, making for an unbeatably delicate fishing experience.

We’ve been told our rods have soul. When you pick them up and cast them or feel them under a fighting load, you’ll notice a difference. It’s a difference that is as stark as listening to music on Bose headphones compared with a bedside clock radio. They simply have performance and finesse that you can feel.

We’ve spend countless hours perfecting our product, and many hours go in to lovingly hand crafting each one.