Carey’s Bay Marine Services owner Eldon Donaldson said the acquisition of a new boat cradle was "really significant" for the business.
Port Nelson had been changing its operations from cradles to hydraulic travel lifts, and the boat maintenance business had bought one of the cradles from them.
It was a "pretty rare opportunity" that did not come up often, Mr Donaldson said.
The new steel cradle had the potential to handle boats of up to 150 tonnes — compared with their existing hardwood one which had only been able to accommodate those up to 100tonnes.
It would have been a "huge expense" to build a new cradle, and it would have probably ended up patching up the old one instead.
"In this economic climate and all that, it just wouldn’t have happened unless that opportunity had come up."
The 15m-long by 7.6m-wide cradle was transported to Dunedin on a house truck before it was lifted into the water using a 100-tonne crane.
The cradle being replaced and its slipway came from a whaling station in Stewart Island, which had been replaced over time, but he estimated it could be about 60 years old.
A slipway was "kind of like a boat ramp with railway lines on it", he said.
Boats would be winched up the rails on to the slipway and out of the water, where they would rest upon the cradle.
The new cradle would allow them to accommodate bigger boats than what they had been able to in the past, and made it a bit more reliable.
They had five slipways of varying sizes, with the new cradle replacing one of three residing outside.
"It’s the biggest cradle we have and it’s replacing the old one and just upgrading it a bit really."
With the new cradle installed, Mr Donaldson hoped to one day work on the University of Otago marine science department’s RV Polaris II, along with some bigger vessels from Lyttelton, Bluff and Timaru.
It could also now work on Port Otago’s pile barge, he said.
