GoBoat Australia sale gives Liberal Senate candidate Nick Tyrrell a war chest and clear air for his campaign. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
GoBoat Australia founder Nick Tyrrell has cleared the decks for his Senate run for the Liberal Party, offloading the business he launched in 2017 to MA Financial Group and Australia’s largest premium marina and hospitality network, d’Albora Marinas.
The lucrative deal will allow Mr Tyrrell to throw everything into his campaign as the Liberals’ lead ACT Senate candidate at the next federal election, due in 2028.
Mr Tyrrell said it was a strategic decision to sell so he could commit fully to winning back the seat lost to independent David Pocock in 2022.
“I’m nothing if not a forward thinker,” said Mr Tyrrell.
“I did start opening doors to those conversations in the middle of last year, thinking about what I wanted to do later in the year.”
Mr Tyrrell won preselection in November and faces a tough three-way contest for the two ACT Senate seats with Senator Pocock and Labor’s Senator Katy Gallagher.
He said the off-market sale to d’Albora Marinas, the landlord at two GoBoat sites, had been quite serendipitous, with informal negotiations starting once they confirmed their interest.
Mr Tyrrell would not say how much the sale was worth but it is understood to be in the millions. It was also an “earnout” deal where he had been contracted to provide transitional advice.
“I’m not unhappy at all,” he said.
“It’s fair compensation for a good eight years in which there were ups and downs, COVID and what have you,” he said.
“So I’m in a good, good position now, but I mean, there were years when I didn’t pay myself a dollar out of the business as well, so you’ve got to take the good with the bad.”
Mr Tyrrell began his electric picnic boat experience on Lake Burley Griffin but then expanded the business to six more sites in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne.
d’Albora is expected to take the concept to even more cities around Australia,
Mr Tyrrell was thrilled that a longtime manager, Amy Weatherby, took over as franchisee of the Canberra site in July before doing the deal.
“She knows the business back to front. It could not be in safer hands,” he said.
A GoBoat vessel on Lake Burley Griffin. The concept will expand to even more cities. Photo: GoBoat Australia.
The deal will also help him fund his Senate campaign, and while, at present, it’s volunteers and shoe leather, eventually Mr Tyrrell will have an office and paid staff.
Not known for doing things by half measures, Mr Tyrrell said he would do whatever it took.
“People told me that at the beginning, when there were no boats on the lake, when I was starting that business, people told me it was impossible, and I was crazy and all that kind of thing,” he said.
“I’m experienced with taking on crazy challenges and making them successful. So that’s how I’m approaching this challenge as well.
“I’ve always had the view that if you’ve got a safety net, or you’re half-arsed about something, then it has a far lower chance of success.”
But the Liberal Party’s leadership woes, including today’s removal of Susan Ley, won’t make the task any easier.
Mr Tyrrell was disappointed at the leadership challenge because he didn’t think Ms Ley was given a fair crack, nor was it a great look to pull down the party’s first female leader after just nine months.
But a week was a long time in politics, and the party had been through this before, although the landscape had changed with so many city seats lost and One Nation rising.
On winning a seat in Canberra, Mr Tyrrell said if the Liberals could crack that nut, it could win a metropolitan seat anywhere.
“The message that I’ve got for the Liberal Party is if we can find a message that works and a message that convinces metropolitan voters in Canberra that we are the best party to represent them, winning back seats in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane and Perth and whatever will be a walk in the park,” he said.
“I’m the tip of the spear, sure, but I’ve got two years. I can fight on the issues that matter to Canberrans and me, and we’ll see what a strong local campaign can do.”
Mr Tyrrell said part of One Nation’s appeal was that people were sick of career politicians who had not done anything else and were not talking about their problems.
He’s hoping to capitalise on his business success and a focus on local, outcomes-based politics to restore the party’s fortunes in the ACT.
“I think it’s a bit of a pox on both the houses kind of vote,” he said.
“A lot of people are parking their vote there because they’re angry that neither party is really talking about the stuff that they want us to talk about.”
