Manaia Legend 2800: One of Rayglass biggest ever boat restorations

We’ve seen some serious fishing vessels here at Rayglass, but our recent refurbishment of a Legend 2800 named Manaia might be the most impressive yet.

Now that the job’s done and Manaia’s out there chasing marlin, we had a chat to Tony Yujervic Rayglass’s service manager to find out more about this massive project.

The idea behind Manaia

Our client is a handy game fisherman who loves getting out deep and catching the biggest fish he can find. At first he searched for a new boat for game fishing but struggled to find something with all the features and customisations he needed. 

Instead he decided to buy a high quality used boat and customise it to suit his exact needs. He found a used Rayglass Legend 2800 and called our premium restoration team to see if we could help make it happen. 

Our brief was to restore the boat to brand new condition and add useful features to transform it into the ultimate game fishing vessel:

“It’s more a question of what we didn’t add then what we did. Over a period of about 6-7 weeks, we worked flat out on this vessel,” Tony said.

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After

A long list of new features

Our premium restoration team have done some massive jobs but Manaia was definitely one of the biggest yet. The long list of new tech, features and improvements for Manaia included:

• A super winch 5500 with wireless remote. 
• Underwater marine lighting. 
• Extra rod holders for drogues.
• Extra live bait tanks and chilly bins. 
• Tuna tubes. 
• Stern drive shower. 
• A massive electronics package including transducer and 16 inch Simrad monitor.
• Minn Kota trawling motor.
• Boat name graphics.
• Fusion speakers. 
• New upholstery and SeaDek. 

One of our favourite new features is definitely the Minn Kota trawling motor. This  little beauty is installed on the bow of the vessel and works as a super quiet trawling motor or to automatically keep you in place when you’re fishing in deep water.

Getting the job done

Manaia took 270 hours of labour to complete, including ordering and fitting dozens of parts during a global pandemic.

“When you look at the finished product, you can’t see how much work went into it but this was a massive job. Waiting for parts was an issue as COVID means shipping is challanging these days. There were so many people involved and so many moving parts - a bit like renovating a house!” Tony said.

The finished product was definitely worth the hard work - we reckon this vessel could be one of the best-equipped game fishing boats on the water in New Zealand. Tony says projects like this mean clients end up with a great value boat:

“You get exactly what you want from electronics and rod holders to live bait tanks, and by the end of it, the vessel looks brand new.”

Want to see what we can do with your old vessel? Get in touch with our premium restoration team to enquire. 

Before

After

After