During 1970s, Harold’s son Harvey became the new designer for the business, and in 1975 he orchestrated a venture between his family business and global marine heavyweight Joseph Kong, former General Manager of American Marine Company. This new project was to design, build and market a brand-new range of pleasure boats all over the world.

Harvey started with a new 30-foot design, and whilst designing the vessel he began to brainstorm names for the brand. He wanted to sell a lifestyle, so he began gaining inspiration from thoughts of cruising the Great Barrier Reef, and other exotic lands with girls in Hula skirts. He wanted to avoid using the Halvorsen name in case the range was ever sold, as he didn’t want to sell the Halvorsen brand – out of nowhere he came up with the name Island Gypsy. He created the concept for the new logo, taking inspiration from the popular crossed flags theme, which seemed to be very fashionable on large Motor Yachts in the USA market. Years later, he found out that in 1948 the family business had actually built a large boat for the tourist market with the name Island Gypsy to be used on the Great Barrier Reef. He was just 9 years old, so this name had obviously remained with him in the back of his mind, just for this moment.

Kong & Halvorsen Marine & Engineering Company, Ltd built many of boats at a purpose-built factory in China over the next 20 years ranging in size from 9.1 metres to over 40 metres, under the Island Gypsy brand. Following the contact with the Chinese government expiring in the early 2000s, the factory closed but Harvey and his son Mark Halvorsen continued with their boat building business by contracting to approved boat yards, launching new additional models.