Born in Auckland New Zealand, Craig Archer grew up around offshore racing with his father Ron, a very active competitor. Craig's 15th birthday wish was to co-drive with his father whom happily obliged and took him in his first offshore race, the Wellington Harbour event in 1976. At the age of 17 Craig became New Zealand's first full time (paid) competitor/ crew chief and quickly won back-to-back titles with Roger Wood in a 24' Cougar Cat named Typhoon.

Craig moved to the US in 1980 and joined Kaama Racing Team as race team member, truck driver, and rigger. Kaama dominated racing in the late 70's, early 80's, winning 2 APBA open class national titles and 3 APBA/UIM world titles, with Betty Cook driving and John Connor throttling. Under John's guidance Craig became a master at setting up, dialing in, preparing, and maintaining offshore racing boats.

In 1983, Craig won his first US race, the inaugural Pacific Offshore Las Vegas race. Craig Archer has been competing ever since, making him one of the true veterans in APBA Offshore today.

1985 saw Craig leave Kaama Marine and with John Connor form Connor Marine. He also teamed with Ron Hishberg racing a 38 Scarab called Revenge. The pair finished 3rd for both the National and World titles in Superboat class.

1986/87 saw both John and Craig join forces with Tom Gentry's American Eagle Team. Craig re-rigged Tom's 38 and 46 ft cats and set up a new 43 footer. He also throttled for Tom's son Norm in the second team boat.

By 1988 Craig had formed Archer Marine Services in Costa Mesa Ca, a company dedicated to rigging, fine tuning and maintaining Offshore racing boats. Archer Marine raised the performance level of boats in California and West Coast racers under Craig's guidance started winning and dominating APBA national events. Among his customers were Nigel Hook, Rique Ford, Paul Whittier, Dennis Sigarlos, Bruce Penhall and Alan Parriser. The National, World, Kilo records and Divisional titles these racers won is simply huge and they have all been quick to credit Craig with helping with their success. Many time champion Nigel Hook has turned to Craig to rig and set up all his boats as has Rique Ford and all 8 (who is counting) of his Ragamuffin's.

A Highlight of Craig's racing to date happened in 1995 when at the season end he was named Pacific Offshore's Racer of the Year, having captured the Western High Point Championship as owner/throttleman.

In 1996 Craig sold Archer Marine and relocated back to New Zealand. He joined Mercury Marine as their Sales Manager for the country where he was pivotal in seeing Mercury regain their lead in market share.

After nearly 4 years of corporate life, in 2000 Craig returned back to being self employed as co-owner of Marine Xpress, an import/distributor of marine products. And Craig teamed with Rique Ford in a run for the International UIM Class 3 World Title, finishing third and dominating many rounds.

For both 2001 and 2002 Craig and Nigel teamed together, with Craig driving, and they led both series before minor problems forced settling with lower placings.

2003 marked Craig's return to the full APBA national circuit and teaming with Nigel.