One, he’s a Hollywood megastar and two, how can you go past the surname for a perfect fit?

Cruise is reputed to be among the current and former owners of more than 6000 yachts made by Riviera Australia, a business started by veteran boatbuilder Bill Barry-Cotter in Sydney in 1980 and relocated to the Gold Coast a year later.

Today, the company is owned by Rodney Longhurst, son of Dreamworld founder John Longhurst, a visionary entrepreneur who built the theme park in the early 80s a mooring line’s throw or so from where Riviera’s sprawling headquarters now sits today on the banks of the Coomera River.

Rodney Longhurst is chatting to High Steaks as he and his 900-strong crew of workers gear up for next week’s Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show which, like Riviera itself, is the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere.

Lean and tanned, Longhurst, 60, strolls into Cavill’s Steakhouse at Labrador wearing chinos, a designer yachtie branded puffer jacket, deck shoes and a gap-toothed smile. His ear is glued to his phone as he finalises a business call amid a busy week pre-boat show, where the company will show off 12 boats including new models.

Yes, I know it’s High Steaks and we’re in a steakhouse. But Longhurst is a man of the sea and red emperor is the menu special, so he opts for the fish of the day and I join him.

Longhurst was only a kid when he and his family moved to the Gold Coast from Sydney in 1974.

His father (who died in 2022 aged 89) had already made his fortune in Sydney with businesses including a mower company called Pace which he started in his suburban garage and ended up selling to Victa for about $10m in today’s money. He also established affordable home and fibreglass boatbuilding companies, both called Pride – Rodney’s love of boating having been whetted as a child aboard his dad’s vessels.

“My father created some businesses and had some success in Sydney and then decided he desperately wanted to build a theme park,” he recalls with a chuckle.

The epiphany came after visiting Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm in the US, and Longhurst Sr parlayed much of his fortune into what was little more than a cow paddock in the-then Gold Coast boondocks at Coomera.

“He’d been to America a few times and loved it – sort of saw it as a land of opportunity. He went to the theme parks and thought ‘wow, this would be great in Australia’,” Rodney says.

“He couldn’t find a suitable place in Sydney so he came up here to the Gold Coast.

“It was like going 200 kays (kilometres) west – there was nothing here except for cows.

“There was no motorway, just the old (Pacific) Highway. People at the time thought my father was mad. But he thought if he built it here, the people would come down from Brisbane and up from the Gold Coast.”

Longhurst Sr built Dreamworld with the help of his other son, Tony, now 68, with a teenage Rodney also chipping in before and after school and on weekends. He left school at 15 to start a carpentry and joinery apprenticeship.

“When I went to TAFE, we had to talk about what we’d been working on – I working on train lines, mountains, roller coasters and paddle wheel steamers at Dreamworld, which was a bit different to what the other apprentices in the class were doing,” he laughs.

“I got to work with some really skilled and hardworking tradesmen. So I learned about work ethic. There was no such thing as a normal week.”

Longhurst went on to get his builder’s licence and developed houses and later, backpacker accommodation in Noosa and Airlie Beach.

In 2000, he teamed up with then Riviera CEO Wes Moxey to buy the former Coomera Slipway site which they developed into a business now known as The Boat Works – a one-stop shop for boat servicing, repairs, storage and sales in the bustling Gold Coast Marine Precinct.

Longhurst’s big brother, businessman and former racing car driver Tony, took over the business after Rodney rescued Riviera from receivership in 2012.

“I loved building stuff and I probably got some of that bug from my father,” he says of his midlife transition into the marine industry.

“I loved to build stuff. I loved that in carpentry and joinery, and boats had been in my life. I remember going on the Pride boats with my father when I was really young and I just thought it was an opportunity. I’ve been in the water all my life, whether it was on a surfboard, swimming, boating or fishing.

“So it was just a good fit. Like my father, taking something and trying to make it better just seems to be a problem I have. So when I saw that Riviera was wounded, if you like, I saw an opportunity.”

Riviera has gone from strength to strength under Longhurst’s stewardship, employing more than 900 full-time staff and contractors (including more than 130 apprentices), producing around 140 boats a year – about 60 per cent of which are exported – and winning awards around the world.

Its custom-crafted vessels range in size from 39ft (11.8m) to 78ft (23.7m), and are priced from just over $1m to $7m for the opulent Riviera 78 motor yacht.

“It’s a lot of boat but it’s also extremely good value when we compare it with other boat values around the world,” Longhurst says.

“We’ve sold about seven or eight of the 78s and they’ve only been around for a few years.

“We try to have a great culture here at “Riv” and that means people turning up who love what they do and doing their best work. So we are trying to build the best boats we can in our length range from 39 to 78 feet – not just as good as anywhere in the world, but better. As far as build quality and design go, we’re up there with the best.

“We’re very comfortable building a boat to last, and a boat for ‘all seasons’ – from fishing to cruising to living and even working aboard.”

Longhurst says Cruise owned a Riviera before he came on deck at the company, back when the Mission Impossible star was still married to Aussie actor Nicole Kidman.

“That was all meant to be top secret (but word got out),” he says, adding the company “generally doesn’t say much” about its high-profile client base.

“We’ve certainly got customers in high roles in large companies, but they just want privacy.”

While a million dollars-plus might be out of reach for the average boatie, Longhurst says an increasing number of people are splashing out on larger and more luxurious vessels because “life is short and time doesn’t stop”.

“Like everyone else, we’ve been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis,” he concedes.

“But the other really interesting side of that is there are people going ‘you know what, regardless of how long a difficult time goes on, I still keep getting older. I want to really enjoy the time I’ve got left to spend with my family and friends, to spend with the grandkids’.

“We’re about creating that lifestyle and experience. Our vision is just laser-focused on creating a great experience for our owners and because time doesn’t stand still.

“Whether I look at what we tried to achieve with the backpacker accommodation, at the Boat Works or at Riviera today, it has all the same sort of ingredients as Dreamworld, where we tried to give people the time of their lives.

“If we can give people some of their greatest memories when they’re sitting back in life’s rocking chair, we’ve done OK.”

The company offers programs including owners cruises, on-water workshops and lady skipper training days and social events to encourage women to get into the wheelhouse.

“We do a lot of women on water training,” Longhurst says.

“The ladies will take the boats out with their friends and that’s awesome. To the point where some of the husbands call themselves the “rope boys”.”

Longhurst says Riviera, which has benefited from a lower Aussie dollar, is yet to feel the shockwaves of Donald Trump’s tariffs but is not quite battening down the hatches.

“We’re pretty agile and we’ll roll with the punches however we’ve got to,” he says.

“We’re well aware that even if Australia was to cop a 10 per cent tariff that was ongoing, there’s other countries selling boats or manufacturing boats that are worse off than we are.

“Something my grandfather told my father, and my father told me, was ‘there’ll be more opportunity tomorrow than ever there was today – just build it a little bit different and a little bit better and there’s a market for you’.

“We’ve seen how rattled the world has gotten over the years with various things, whether it’s the pandemic or a war or other things impacting economies.

“We’ve just got to duck and weave. To me, it’s a bit of a chess game. Make the best moves you can.”

Red emperor ratings:

Rodney: 9/10

Greg: 9.5/10