About Us

Fosters Ship Chandlery is something of a legend in Auckland and is known to seafarers from many lands.  It has rich history in the New Zealand marine industry having grown side by side with it since established by Alexander Foster in 1907.  Now, in 2008, Fosters has served the waterfront for three generations.

Alex Foster was born in Opotiki in 1881.  In 1907 he began a small marine and engineering supply business securing the marine and steam products for it whilst working overseas as an engineer in the merchant shipping industry.  When ashore at home in Auckland, he worked at establishing the fledgling business he called Alex Foster & Co. 

In the first few years the business remained a part-time marine agency that occupied a small downstairs section of the building now know as “Fosters” on Fanshawe in Auckland.  This was before the land reclamation when the building was immediately opposite the waterfront and the Bailey & Lowe boatyards and slipways.       
 

William Teixeira

In 1917 Alex took on his long time friend William Teixeira as a business partner.  They shared a common maritime background and stayed ashore to progressively build the business.  These early days, during the First World War, expansion was out of the question and growth was slow. However, Fosters and New Zealand did progress due to wider use of electricity, rapid increase in motor vehicles, use of stationary engines in industry, and the expansion by land reclamation and subsequent development of this new land. 

Reclamation also changed the proximity of Fosters to the waterfront.  No longer could the square rigger and scows be seen tied broadside to the wharf in front of Fosters. They anchored instead in the exposed bay now known as the Viaduct Basin where the northwesterly storms would often blow them ashore.  When this happened, Foster supplied the materials needed by the boat builders to repair them.

David Barker's Painting Majorie Craig berthed in front of the Fosters Premises in 1907

They expanded slowly and took over more and more space in the building using the lower basement as warehouse to store quantities of chain, anchors, trawl shackles, swivels, foreign cargo hooks, linseed oil, kerosene and mineral turpentine.

During the 1940’s war years business was very restricted by the various government emergency regulations. Before a scow operator or commercial fisherman could replace even a length of rope, a government departmental permit was necessary to obtain approval to sell the same. Hence, those years resulted in major shortages and limited growth.

In the years immediately after World War II Fosters continued to supply the established boat builders, commercial fishermen, scow owners, harbour boards and various commercial marine engineering companies.  All of them clamoured for engineering and ship chandlery items which remained in short supply into the 1950’s. Even locally manufactured marine hardware was hard to get due to the shortages of imported raw materials. 

The Fosters Building under construction in 1906

In the 50's Foster and Teixeira reached retirement age.  With no immediate family to continue the business, they approached Sydney Street to join Fosters as director and shareholder.  Syd Street’s background was in banking - 30 years of experience with the Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd (now Westpac).  It was through this connection that Syd Street developed a close involvement with Alex Foster and his business and in 1953 Street left the banking business to joined Fosters as a director/shareholder.

The mid 50’s heralded a gradual improvement in shipments. Slowly a wider range of ship chandlery and marine engineering products were available, but acquisition of these new products was subject to obtaining overseas funds.  As far as the authorities who issued these permits were concerned, the thought of importing an engine for a pleasure boat was completely out of the question. Thus, the major proportion of Fosters’ trade remained in the commercial marine and engineering fields. There were just not many pleasure craft in existence. 

After Foster’s and Teixeira’s deaths in the late ‘50’s, Street purchased the remaining shareholding and was joined in the business by his son John Street in 1959 when plywood construction was becoming widespread in the building of dinghies, runabouts, and later, medium sized launches and keelboats. Fosters introduced new products to meet this change in building methods and materials.  They imported brands such as Fico, Riley, Gibb, Lewmar, and Sestrel to meet the increasing demand of the growing yacht fraternity; and they added a number of agencies to the existing principals represented over the years; Davey & Co., Simpson Lawrence Ltd, British Ropes Ltd, and M.S. Gibb Ltd to name a few.

The 60’s and 70’s brought a rapidly expanding boat building industry to New Zealand. Fosters were now not only distributing traditional ship chandlery products, but also introduced new marine hardware products.  The growing society of  boat builders, some from early ship building families, joined the long established boatbuilding customers of Fosters.

John Street

In the early 70's Syd Street decided to take a less active role in Fosters.  It was at this time that John Street took over the helm and steered the company into the 21st century.  From this period on, New Zealand soon built a reputation of being world class designers and boat builders. Builders started to make a real impact on the overseas markets. The industry was helped by the successes of our yachtsmen and women in Olympic competition, world championships, Admirals Cup, Pan Am Clipper Cup and Whitbread Round the World Races. Names like Sir Peter Blake, Grant Dalton, Chris Dickson and all their crews. These sailors, and so many more, helped build New Zealand's reputation as the world's greatest sailing nation and producers of the best and most competitive boats in boat building.  Fosters has had a continuing involvement in most if not all the nation's sailing successes.

Fosters flourished with equipment being developed for the centreboard sailors, around the World competitors, and America's Cup Challenges.  This has been especially applicable to the long association with Harken Inc, who purchased Fosters in 2007 and continues to operate Fosters as the exceptional ship chandlery it has always been whilst riding the edge of the technical advancement in the sailing world. Fosters will continue to grow through its extensive product range whilst maintaining its traditional ship chandlery hardware items.  And it will maintain the long established business connections with principals overseas and New Zealand.

The future for Fosters is extremely positive and with the marking of the 100th anniversary celebrated in 2007 the next 100 years will no doubt see some amazing development in both materials and technology. In the early years of this 21st century, Fosters continues to maintain its motto:

Uniquely Old-fashioned - Proudly Progressive