The Marine Guys

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The Marine Guys Marine Sales, Service and Installations. From diagnosis of basic problems onboard to major refits, We cover it all.

Welcome to " The Marine Guys "

The Marine Guys is a locally grown marine service business based on the owners 30 years of experience in the marine industry coupled with some of the best contractors around to provide a diverse range of services to all types of vessels. Whether its complete vessel management or basic diagnostic repairs and installations on small trailer boats to large pleasure motor and sailing craft, we can cater for almost all your needs right here in house. Although we are based in the Breakwater Marina in Townsville, we are often called out to marinas north and south of here so if you need some services and are not in Townsville, give us a call and we will come to you. After starting off in the Navy in the Mid 80's, Colin Dunne, the owner of The Marine Guys has since gained master 4 and marine engineering qualifications, a diploma in small ship surveying and worked in/operated/owned many marine businesses from operating commercial vessels, performing many powerboat and yacht deliveries around the Pacific and within Australia, managing/owning marine retail outlets to working in the marine service environment. Our diverse range of experience from large commercial vessels, pleasure power boats to sailing vessels puts us in a great position to provide a range of quality marine services.

⚓ Some of the services we provide

* Installation of marine equipment: Whether you purchase the gear yourself or ask us to get it, we can install it for you.
* Marine engine service and maintenance.
* Vessel management and refit specialists:
* Diagnostic and repair on most vessel. systems: electronics systems, plumbing and sanitation systems, hydraulics and steering, engine management systems, battery and power management systems, anchor winches, air-conditioning and refrigeration, sailing boat rigging to name a few.
* Marine Inspections: Thinking of buying a boat. An inspection from us may tell you some of the bad things going on under the decks. We can arrange full haul-out inspections through to basic area specific inspections to help you with your purchase.
* If you need something done, give us a call to see if it is within our scope of capabilities to provide.


⚓ Only the best products and spares

* The age old statement " you get what you pay for " certainly applies to marine products. After dealing with marine equipment for many years we have come to know the quality in all the brand names available today. We only use and recommend those products however if you have a personal favorite then we can organize that too with access to many of the major marine brands sold by the marine wholesalers here in Australia.

⚓⚓⚓⚓⚓ THE MARINE GUYS ⚓⚓⚓⚓⚓

SERVICING THE MARINE INDUSTRY

Last job for the week done and dusted. It’s never “ pleasant “ working on black water systems but this 47 Rivieara owner...
16/10/2026

Last job for the week done and dusted. It’s never “ pleasant “ working on black water systems but this 47 Rivieara owner got us to travel to Innisfail to service his two vacuum toilet and holding tanks systems for one very good reason, they weren’t broken. ????

The Marine Guys refurbished this system completely in 2020 due to it being destroyed by people who had NO understanding of these systems. I know some people are against these vacuum toilet systems but in most cases I find it is because it is being worked on without a good understanding of where and how the problems occur.

1/. Vacuum leaks = vacuum generator coming on regularly like every 5/10/15 mins ( it shouldn’t ).
2/. Vacuum leak too big = no flushy properly and system will build and block up
3/. Black water leak = black water small and waste into your holding tank space = unsanitary and smelly

Pressure switches ???
Bellows ???
Tank level senders ???
Toilet seals ???
Holding tank seals ???
Hose connections ???

Where is the issue happening ???

We can tell you exactly where it is happening. 😉

Although it wasn’t broken, it was time for a service ( 5 years without any issues seems pretty good to me ). We serviced this toilet system with all the normal serviceable parts and made some repairs to components that have been damaged from external reasons like this pressure switch that we found with corroded off terminals from a leaking water maker gauge fitting. That’s boats but not a fault of the system.

Give us a call if your vacuum or any sanitation system is not operating as it should.

PLEASE. Check your bilge pumps. If you cannot do it if it is too hard then get us to do it for you. We recently checked...
13/10/2026

PLEASE. Check your bilge pumps. If you cannot do it if it is too hard then get us to do it for you.

We recently checked this pump while installing a high level bilge alarm into a boat for insurance purposes. As you can see this pump was clogged with hair and debris. Here is the kicker though. When this pump was turned on manually from the dash panel it “ SOUNDED “ ok. It may have sounded on and normal but it would never have pumped anything at all.

Over the many years that I have repaired bilge pumps I have come across many things that have managed to get past the base plate strainer and into the pump cavity causing either poor performance or complete failure. These are the common ones

1/. Cable tie pieces ( very common )
2/. Stripped ends from electrical cables. ( very common )
3/. Pet or human hair.
4/. Oil sludge if the bilge is dirty.

02/10/2026

What has he done?

WHAT HAS HE DONE đŸ˜±Nicholas Dunne from The Marine Guys has taken on a project boat. Needs a few small tricky structural ...
02/10/2026

WHAT HAS HE DONE đŸ˜±

Nicholas Dunne from The Marine Guys has taken on a project boat. Needs a few small tricky structural repairs that the boys from BOATWORKS NORTH will help out with but other than that it will be all Nick ( maybe with a little help from dad ). Let’s see how it all pans out. With a keen attitude and a learn as you go approach, this Haines 1700s may get a second chance at life.

Two sets of stays made up for the upcoming sprints regatta in Townsville. 1 x B14 skiff - 2.5mm and 3mm 1x7 power flex c...
02/10/2026

Two sets of stays made up for the upcoming sprints regatta in Townsville.

1 x B14 skiff - 2.5mm and 3mm 1x7 power flex compacted stainless wire
1 x Weta trimaran - 1x19 2.5mm stainless wire rope, new vernier stay adjusters. New halyard lock strop.

What’s the hair spray and the jar with the red lid for you say.?

So it’s time to change your house battery bank on your boat and you invest some good money on a set of Tier 1 AGM batter...
26/09/2026

So it’s time to change your house battery bank on your boat and you invest some good money on a set of Tier 1 AGM batteries. You contact a marine specialist ( like The Marine Guys 😜 ) to swap them out for you. Slightly different to your existing batteries but no problem with a bit of reconfiguring of the battery cabling and everything fits into the existing battery box area. Job done and everyone can go home and forget about them for awhile as they are brand new right??? Wrong.

The owners of this vessel were visiting Townsville and had to catch a plane home the next day for a week and then return to continue their sailing journey.

After we fitted up the batteries we asked the owners to check the batteries and battery monitor for normal behaviour to what they were used to seeing on their boat until the next day and let me know if anything seemed out of place. There wasn’t anything and everything appeared normal.

I made the offer to the owners to return to the vessel the next day after they had left and double check the batteries myself. This is what I found. One of the four batteries had a cell that was venting out the top of the battery case and at that point was ten degrees hotter than the cells around it. It was very subtle and possibly easily missed which could have been a lot messier if that was left for a week or longer unchecked. This battery was swapped out under warranty and everything rechecked with no more issues.

Does your battery people 
..

1/. Ask the right questions as to why you are changing your batteries out. ( it’s not always the batteries )
2/. Really understand marine battery systems.
3/. Can tell you all the reasons your battery system is not giving you the life you would expect.
4/. Make recommendations to improve your battery bank life and possibly your safety

đŸ€”

What would be one of your biggest considerations when installing the battery isolating switches on your boat???I see all...
17/09/2026

What would be one of your biggest considerations when installing the battery isolating switches on your boat???

I see all too often that these switches are buried deep inside engine rooms with no way of getting to them quickly in an emergency. It doesn’t matter how big your boat is, the fact is if there is some sort of major engine room failure like fire or battery explosion and your battery switches are at the back of it, you will not be able to isolate the batteries which could make the situation much worse. Best practice tells us that the switches need to be as close to the batteries as possible. So what do we do?

One way that boat builders get around this it to install remote operated battery switches with manual over rides. These switches can be turned on and of out side the engine room via a control circuit. Indicating lights are a normal part of these systems allowing for easy identification of connection and isolation of the vessels battery banks. If there is a failure in the control circuit then there is a manual over-ride allowing for isolation if possible.

The trick is to keep these switches tested to make sure they operate as they should and replace them if they don’t.

The owners of the vessel that these switches were on had them manually configured to be on permanently, including the emergency parallel switch as they didn’t operate from the remote locations due to failure after 16 years of operation. By physically joining all banks together, the chargers were stressed and both battery banks developed issues.

We replaced both switches with the modern version of the same unit and tested up all ok 👍. The Customer now has some safe options regarding his battery isolation.

If your anchor winch doesn’t look like picture #1 after it is installed then it will most likely end up looking like pi...
13/08/2026

If your anchor winch doesn’t look like picture #1 after it is installed then it will most likely end up looking like picture #2&3. We have been installing quality brands like Muir and Maxwell for many years as well as doing repairs, maintenance and installations on all the brands. If you need a new winch or yours is not performing as you think it should, let us know and we can have a look for you.

On the repair thing
. I recently spoke to a customer who had his winch repaired in Townsville. The repairer changed almost all of the components out ( foot switch, solenoid, circuit breaker and eventually the whole winch ) before the job was deemed complete. The only thing they didn’t change was the wiring. If your repairer cannot do some simple tests and tell you exactly what is wrong before changing anything then you should expect a large bill like this customer received. Find a repairer with experience and you will be good to go.

PS. There may be a few naysayers regarding the Denso tape around the winch. If anyone wishes to get the history on it I can talk to them about how we were instrumental in getting Muir to change their installation recommendations from “ strictly do not use denso tape “ to “ recommend using denso tape “ and incorporating this into their installation instructions.

Icemaker parts arrived for this sports Riviera just in time for the weekend. Happy cocktails for this boat owner over on...
07/08/2026

Icemaker parts arrived for this sports Riviera just in time for the weekend. Happy cocktails for this boat owner over on the island this weekend. Good to have Nicholas Dunne available to fit into the small spaces.

Just a little upgrade for this Riviera 38. The old Vessel View screens which show the engine data from the Cummins diese...
22/07/2026

Just a little upgrade for this Riviera 38. The old Vessel View screens which show the engine data from the Cummins diesel engines had died. A nice little Garmin 7” screen and a few networking changes behind the scenes later and we have all the engine info we need.

Address

Mariners Drive
Townsville, QLD
4810

Telephone

+61447518888

Website

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