Maine’s Proud History of Building Boats | Maine Boats Homes & Harbors

A look back at the past 200 years

This early motorized lobsterboat, 40 feet long and 9 feet wide, was built in the 1920s by Vinalhaven builder L.A. Coombs and is typical of lobsterboats of that era. It had a top speed of 14 mph. Courtesy Penobscot Marine Museum

The 44-foot Ivy Jean was built by SW Boatworks in 2019 and fin-ished at Mainely Boats in Cushing. The big Calvin Beal hull is an example of a recent trend toward bigger, faster lobsterboats. Photo by Brian Robbins

Started by the Gray family in 1903, the Old Town Canoe Co. was Maine’s largest canoe builder. This one was built in 1936 for a family member. Years later, descendent Benson Gray found and restored it. Courtesy Benson Gray

Native Americans were the earliest boat builders in Maine, build-ing dug-out canoes and then birchbark. Passamaquoddy artisan David Moses Bridges is shown in a canoe he built. Photo © Darel Gabriel Bridges

The 74' Foggy, designed by Frers Naval Architecture and modernist archi-tect Frank Gehry and built at Brooklin Boat Yard, drew on the talents of many artisans—the boat is as much a sculpture as it is a sailing vessel. Photo by Todd Eberle

The Hodgdon family has been building boats in the Boothbay region since 1816, making them the country’s oldest boatbuilders still in existence. This image shows the yard around 1899.
Courtesy Penobscot Marine Museum

Affordable and practical, Corson runabouts—built in Madison, Maine—were extremely popular in the late 1950s and 1960s and could be considered Maine’s first fiberglass production boats. Photo by Polly Saltonstall

This early motorized lobsterboat, 40 feet long and 9 feet wide, was built in the 1920s by Vinalhaven builder L.A. Coombs and is typical of lobsterboats of that era. It had a top speed of 14 mph. Courtesy Penobscot Marine Museum

As rusticators came from away in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they took to the water, starting yacht clubs and engaging in sailboat races. The North Haven Dinghy, a 14-foot catboat that evolved from the visiting yachtsman’s tender, is the oldest one-design racing class in North America, some say the world. Most of the wooden versions of these boats (a fiberglass version was introduced in the 1980s) were built at North Haven’s J.O. Brown and Sons yard, which was started in the 1880s. On the powerboat front, Anson Corson was a pioneer in the use of fiberglass for the mass production of runabouts in the late 1950s. Dozens of yards have helped Maine hold a worldwide reputation for fine boatbuilding, both in wood and newer epoxy-based materials.

After years of mass-producing wooden boats, the Henry R. Hinckley Co. launched its first fiberglass sailing yacht, the Bermuda 40, in 1959. Hinckley branched out into fast modern powerboats in 1989 and in 1994 introduced its ground-breaking jet-powered “picnic boat,” adding the equally novel concept of joy-stick steering in 1998.

While a number of Maine yards have won worldwide reputations for their fine work in wood, builders in the state also have been at the forefront of introducing new technologies, from the blending of wood and epoxies to build cold-molded hulls, to lightweight but strong carbon fiber.

Recently, Hodgdon Yachts, which started buildings boats in 1816 and is the country’s oldest boatbuilder, created a warehouse-sized oven and built the record-setting carbon-fiber monohull racing machine, Comanche.

The University of Maine, which introduced the world’s largest 3D printing machine in 2018, has been at the forefront of work on integrating 3D printing with boat construction. Another innovation in the last few decades has been computer generated design and computer-controlled cutting machines that have simplified the creation of boat parts, as well as the creation of boat kits for home builders.

Launched in 2018 by Lyman-Morse in Thomaston, Anna is a 65' cold-molded sloop designed by Stephens Waring Yacht Design of Belfast. Like many contemporary yachts built in Maine in what is known as the “spirit of tradition,” she features modern systems, but classic looks. Photo by Alison Langley

The first English-built ship constructed in North America was the Virginia, a 30-ton pinnace built in 1607 by colonist in Popham, at the mouth of the Kennebec River; a nonprofit has been building a reconstruction in Bath for several years. Since those early days, boatbuilding and related maritime businesses have been a major force both in the state’s economy. In a salute to the men and women who built these vessels, and along with Maine’s reputation for top-notch boats, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors will host a special exhibit at the Maine Boat & Home Show this August 13-15, 2021 showcasing examples of many of these boats.

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