Director of Value Engineering Luke Fitzgerald recently designed and built a bespoke fishing bait station for a boat.

After noticing a gap in the market for a catch-all storage and bait station, Luke Fitzgerald set about creating a custom solution.

As Director of Value Engineering at Hythe Marine Services (HMS), Luke has extensive experience in fabricating bespoke solutions for the marine industry. He leads the team on anything from small-scale projects to supporting the Navy’s warships and composites for luxury superyachts.

And as a keen fisherman, he knew there was nothing widely available that would be suitable as a customisable solution for a fishing rack. As a result, Luke created a bespoke fishing bait station from scratch – a completely custom design to suit the boat and the needs of the fishermen.

What Was The Problem?

Nobody is selling tailored bait stations, so bespoke boat storage is hard to come by. He told us, “Bespoke custom-made boat equipment and things like that just aren’t on the market.”

The aim was to create a fishing workstation that would fit a toolbox, fishing rod holders, a chopping table, and all the necessary equipment and organisation in one place.

Find out about the HMS team’s experience with boatbuilding in our related article: The World of Luxury Yachts and Traditional Boatbuilding.

The Solution

Nothing like this existed for the customer’s Offshore 2000 fishing boat. And so, Luke wanted to create a central workstation that would tailor to every need when out fishing. Spending his free time fishing in coastal waters, as well as offshore fishing targeting wrecks and sandbanks, Luke knew this one-stop-shop would provide more time to enjoy the actual fishing.

With a career in fabrication, Luke knows what he’s doing when it comes to bespoke solutions for boat owners. He explained, “I’ve done a few similar projects in the past. With custom solutions, pretty much anything the customer dreams up for their boat can be made. The sky’s the limit.”

Using 316L stainless steel tube and fitting, he designed, constructed and fit this custom-made fishing bait station.

The Process For Building A Bespoke Fishing Bait Station

These bespoke units are very appealing to boat owners, marinas, and anybody with an interest in fishing or the marine industry. We asked Luke what the process would look like for customers interested in a similar solution.

He explained, “We can make anything they want, so finding out what their needs are is the first step.”

Once the team has a good idea of what the customer is looking for from their bespoke unit, they can work backwards from there. The Hythe team will then produce a drawing and use CAD software to get the dimensions and create a 3D image of what it will look like.

This enables the customer to visualise the unit in their own boat. Finally, the customer approves the look of the design, before the team begin the work.

Of course, no project like this would be complete without testing out the fishing bait station in person! So Luke and MD, Josh Mathias, went out and tried it out, purely for product testing purposes of course!*

*Hythe returned all catches to the sea.

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