Hodgdon Yachts has been building boats in East Boothbay for almost 100 years. Although the company remains best known for its custom luxury yachts, it has remained flexible, taking on available work and modernizing techniques as new technology becomes available. Guided by president Tim Hodgdon, the company’s latest move, designed to keep its highly skilled 72-man workforce steadily employed year-round, includes work not only on different types of boats and refit work, but also a venture into architectural milling for a luxury home.
Ted Smith, Custom Yacht Representative at Hodgdon, explains that diversification makes sense not only in not having all the company’s eggs in one basket, but also that when the yard builds a yacht, the need for different types of workers varies. Sometimes craftsmen would be asked to help with other types of jobs. As the production process moves forward, the workforce must likewise be increased. “After the yacht goes out the door, there’s an inevitable drop off,” he says. “Diversification is a way to reduce the peaks and valleys in the production force.”
To support diversification, Hodgdon has developed the capability to handle simultaneous projects that Smith says “will help keep the joiners doing joinery, the boat builders building boats, the systems guys doing systems and so forth.” Some projects are new; others involve refit work, such as the recent refurbishing of the motor yacht YOREL, built at Hodgdon 15 years ago. Hauling boats up for refitting became possible when Hodgdon built its 20,000-foot production bay, which opens onto a railway launch into the Damariscotta River, to accommodate construction of the 154-foot ketch SCHEHERAZADE.
Some of Hodgdon’s joinery craftsmen have been with the company for as long as 15 years. They have created diverse interiors, including the gleaming traditional cherry woodwork in the 124-foot sloop ANTONISIA, launched in 1999, to the contemporary fiddleback European sycamore and black walnut of SCHEHERAZADE (WWF April 2003), launched in 2003. For the latter’s interior, master craftsmen also carved over 500 decorative marine motifs, including seashells, seahorses and kelp.
During the fall of 2004 and until early 2005, these craftsmen have transferred their skills to a different sort of job — completing architectural mill work for a contemporary home, “Rockledge,” under construction in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Smith says the opportunity for this new direction appeared when one of the project managers for the approximately 6,000-square-foot house approached Hodgdon, asking if the company could take over the complex milling for the home’s cabinetry and interior joinery. “They sent along drawings, and we realized it would be pretty easy for us to put it into place on short notice,” says Smith. “It made sense for our long range diversification strategy.”
The job includes a series of 12 to 24-foot second story walnut panels, a rotunda, an entrance to a movie theater, cabinetry for two kitchens and eight or nine bathrooms, several columns and over 50 interior doors. Smith describes the style as veneer work with clean, linear lines. “There are some ornate details,” he says, “but most of the work is about matching grain patterns.” Pieces are crafted in Hodgdon’s Murray Hill joinery shop and trucked to the house, where a contractor supervises installation.
As the job’s demands have grown in scale, Hodgdon tried to farm out some of the work, but found that only certain parts could be sent out. “The expertise of the guys working at Hodgdon is not replicated in other places,” Smith says, “especially in veneer work and the selection of grains, the eye for matching tones. That kind of expertise is hard to find.”
Most of this work will be completed in time to shift joiners to start the interior of the 98-foot yacht, H406, which will not to be named until her launch in the summer of 2006. This yacht marks a new direction for Hodgdon by being the first customized from the H105 design, created in conjunction with the Fontaine Design Group of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
Smith explains that H105 was developed as a concept boat, designed with a certain group of boat owners in mind, people who would want to move up from their 50- to 70-foot yachts. The ketch is 100 feet long, has two or three guest cabins, accommodations for a crew of four and, with its shoal draft with centerboard, a worldwide cruising range. Prospective customers are invited to customize the yacht to fit their own needs. Such was the case with H406, which is 98 feet long, has three staterooms and a shallower draft than the original design, permitting the yachting family that ordered it to visit their favorite cruising grounds.
Still, Hodgdon can transfer the engineering and systems such as propulsion, electrical, seawater and fresh water of H105 to any other customized version. “It’s a great cost savings for the client and the yard,” says Smith, “and we get to install systems we have confidence in and know we have room for.”
Besides custom yacht building, the architectural milling and retro-fitting, Hodgdon has also expanded its design and engineering office, hiring an engineer with expertise in the use of composites in high speed vessels. In partnership with the University of Maine AEWC, Donald Blount & Associates, Inc. and Eric Green Associates, they secured a one million dollar Federal contract in 2004 to design a prototype for a high-speed composite hull design for a U.S. Navy medium range insertion craft (MRIC). This is the type of boat used by Special Forces to drop Navy SEALS at the site of their mission. The company believes the intention of the government is to have Hodgdon build the prototype in 2005.
Peter Horne, head of the joinery shop at Hodgdon, says although a few of the older craftsmen enjoyed being a jack-of-all-trades and moving through different jobs like installation of plumbing and electrical systems as yacht construction progressed, most of the joinery workforce is happy that Hodgdon is diversifying in a way that keeps them doing woodwork. “It’s the best use of our talent,” he notes, adding that “the majority of the most gifted woodworkers prefer to be right at the bench doing nothing but high-end woodworking.”
Smith says Hodgdon will continue to explore new ways to keep its highly skilled workforce employed year-round, maintaining the flexibility and commitment to superior construction that has sustained a viable boatbuilding business through five generations.