Born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1947, Graeme King became fascinated with boats at the early age of five.
After while watching a newsreel of an eight oared shell race, Graeme went home immediately and built his first model of a rowing shell.
His first effort would mark the beginning of a long and illustrious career as one of the most decorated and credible rowing shell designers in the world.
At the age of 16, Graeme Started an apprenticeship with the South Australian Railways and began rowing. The combination of his training as mechanical engineer and introduction to rowing, Graeme knew he wanted to dedicate his life to building racing boats.
In 1965 he built his first full scale 1x, a boat equipped with fully adjustable stretchers and riggers, with a much wider span than normal. The rowing world began to take notice of his fine craftsmanship and began ordering boats. One customer was Norm Talbot, a ten times state sculling champion and President’s Cup holder,
In 1970, Talbot commissioned Graeme King to build him a boat which he rowed to gold at the Australian National Championships in 1971, the first of many national championships to be won in King shells.
Through the 1970’s, Graeme flourished as a boat builder and mechanical engineer. Howard Croker is one rowing dignitary that helped put King in the spotlight of international rowing. Croker and legendary coach Harry Parker crossed paths at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and spoke about Graeme’s attention to detail and how his skills as a mechanical engineer were showing up in the form of singles in Australia. Soon thereafter Graeme King and Harry Parker were introduced. Coach Parker took Graeme over to the USA as the Harvard boatman, a position King held from 1972-1975. At the end of the ’75 season Graeme King returned home to Australia to continue designing and selling boats.
Graeme’s connection with WinTech began when Howard Winklevoss bought the Quantum boat company where Graeme was the principle boat designer. Due to limited capacity, in 2003 Howard moved production to the Hangzhou Flying Eagle Boat Company, the world’s leading racing boat supplier. In 2004, the WinTech King Brand was born.
