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Hodgdon Yachts signs contract for three 12m custom tenders

Hodgdon Yachts have signed contracts with a repeat client for three 12.19-metre tenders. Due for delivery in 2025, they will complement a new-build project currently underway in Northern Europe.

Michael Peters Yacht Design is responsible for each of the design and naval architecture of the Limousine, Open and Beachlander Sport tenders with all engineering completed by an in-house team. The three vessels will boast stainless steel details and external lighting adornments, as well as custom features specific to each model.

“Having delivered numerous American-built tenders to top projects, we have had a full order book at Hodgdon Tenders and we’re grateful for the opportunity to build three more,” said Audrey Hodgdon, the company's director of sales and marketing.

The Limousine tender will include a luxurious interior able to accommodate 15 guests. The design is set to include climate control, soft leather upholstery, integrated champagne storage and a sweeping glass roof.

Alternatively, the Open tender will include a spacious cockpit, large aft sunpad and generous storage areas equipped for watersports and fishing. Finally, the Beachlander Sport model will boast a hydraulic bow ramp, folding composite t-top and day head.

Hodgdon Yachts is the oldest boat builder in the United States.

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Hodgdon Yachts: To Damariscotta and beyond

Story Location: 6 Angell Lane Damariscotta , ME 04543 United States

Across the street from a stream of traffic on busy Route 1 in Damariscotta sits a giant blue warehouse. Taped on the windows are two big signs that read: “Boatbuilders Wanted”

On March 19 Hodgdon Yachts celebrated a major milestone — the grand opening of a new shipbuilding facility.

The ribbon was cut at noon, as shipbuilders, boat enthusiasts and Damariscotta town officials congregated around owner Tim Hodgdon as he commemorated the world class yacht company’s 21,500-square-foot  acquisition .

“Five years ago we recognized a new direction for our company to build high end custom and and semi-custom tenders, including unique limousine tenders to service the global mega-yacht industry,”  Hodgdon said. “We intend to expand this business and make skillful jobs at this location.”

Hodgdon said the new facility will be used specifically for the construction of tenders. Tenders are small boats between 8.5-12 meters long. They are carried aboard large yachts and are used primarily to motor safely into ports. Additionally, Hodgdon's international sales team has opened a new office in the Western Europe city-state of Monaco to handle the increased sales of tenders.

While the new Damariscotta shop is expected to add 10 new jobs to the workforce, Hodgdon said he wanted “to be very clear” about what he is doing.

“I will not be moving operations out of East Boothbay,” Hodgdon said. “Operations here are an expansion and growth opportunity for our already existing company.”

Shipbuilding has been a staple industry of the East Boothbay waterfront for nearly 200 years, and according to Hodgdon, he intends to keep it there, while continuing to grow the business as “aggressively as possible.”

Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus also spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony.

“A hundred years ago about this time, we had a thriving harbor and boatyard in both Great Salt Bay and the Damariscotta Harbor. There were about two dozen shipbuilders there at the time,” Lutkus said. “I see this as another era following that same theme.”

Visitors were invited to tour the facilities after the ceremony, and the shipbuilders returned to work, building the cutting edge vessels that have established Hodgdon Yachts amongst the world's finest.

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Shipyard Expansion to Bring ‘Good Jobs’ to Damariscotta

January 31, 2014 at 12:00 am

  at the end of cutline for proper spacing --> The former Meyer Products LLC facility in Damariscotta, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013. The East Boothbay company Hodgdon Shipbuilding LLC is going to build custom yacht tenders at the long-vacant facility. (J.W. Oliver photo)  

By J.W. Oliver

Updated Jan. 8 at 1:55 p.m.

The East Boothbay company Hodgdon Shipbuilding LLC is going to build custom yacht tenders at a long-vacant facility in Damariscotta.

The company is currently preparing to move its Hodgdon Custom Tenders division to 6 Angell Lane, formerly a Meyer Products LLC facility.

A 21,500-square-foot building, including a 19,900-square-foot steel structure and 1,600 square feet of office space, stands on the 7-acre property, which has frontage on Route 1 near the Damariscotta-Nobleboro town line.

The move will create jobs in Damariscotta. “I think initially we would have 10 to 15 (workers at the facility) depending on what work is going on at any point in time,” Hodgdon Yachts Inc. Director of Sales and Marketing Ed Roberts said.

“We will probably hire about 10 new people; about five or so will transfer from the East Boothbay operation,” Roberts said. “Over time, as the business grows, we expect to hire more.”

“The boat business in general, especially the higher-end boats which we build, are both labor intensive and skilled-labor intensive, so the high-end boat business tends to be a very good source of very good jobs,” Roberts said.

“The reason for the move is because the rest of our business is robust enough right now that we’ve outgrown the facility we’re currently using to build the tenders in, here in East Boothbay,” Roberts said.

Damariscotta makes sense for the company as a central location and “a great little community besides,” Roberts said.

“A lot of our workers come from off the (Boothbay) peninsula, so it makes it a little bit easier for people to commute,” Roberts said. “Damariscotta is a nice location to draw from both north, south and west of us.”

The Damariscotta facility will build custom yacht tenders, typically for 250- to 300-foot super-yachts. Large yachts often have a tender, or small boat, to transport people to and from the yacht.

“They’re typically in the size range of about 10 meters, and the limousine version of the boat we do is kind of like a private jet inside,” Roberts said. “It’s used to transport the owner and VIP guests back and forth to the mother ship.”

The price of a custom tender varies greatly. The popular 10.5-meter Limousine Tender, with a design by Michael Peters Yacht Design, of Sarasota, Fla., has a base price of $1.7 million.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding plans to open the facility the first week of February. The company plans to add heat to the warehouse, which currently has none, and add crane capacity, Roberts said.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding will lease the property from Damariscotta North LLC, of Portland.

The expansion is generating positive feedback in the community.

Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus said he is “very excited about the Hodgdon Yachts decision to expand into Damariscotta.”

“Although it may be a while before they’re up to being fully staffed, in the longer term it sounds like there may be 30 to 40 highly skilled jobs in Damariscotta,” Lutkus said. “We believe that is fantastic news for our local economy, and we are delighted to have Hodgdon Yachts here.”

The 6 Angell Lane facility was “by far the largest” vacant commercial space in Damariscotta, Lutkus said.

The building, once a manufacturing facility and warehouse for Diamond Equipment and Meyer Products LLC, has been vacant since at least January 2011, when Lutkus became town manager.

Diamond Equipment and Meyer Products LLC manufactured snow- and ice-management equipment, such as plows and sanders.

The town of Damariscotta assesses the value of the property and the structure, which dates to 1985, at $318,800.

The Louis Berkman Realty Company, of Steubenville, Ohio, sold the property in April to the Herbert T. Sears Revocable Trust and the Ann M. Sears Revocable Trust, of Exeter, N.H., for $500,000, according to records on file at the Damariscotta town office. The Louis Berkman Realty Company is the parent company of Meyer Products LLC.

The trusts subsequently transferred the property to Damariscotta North LLC. Mason Sears, son of Herbert and Ann Sears, is the manager of Damariscotta North LLC.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding LLC operates Hodgdon Yachts Inc. and three other divisions: Hodgdon Custom Tenders, Hodgdon Defense Composites and Hodgdon Fine Interiors.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding President Timothy Hodgdon represents the fifth generation of his family to build boats on the Damariscotta River in East Boothbay.

The company has more than 55,000 square feet of construction and office space at its main facility at 14 School St. in East Boothbay, according to its website. The interiors division has a manufacturing facility at 150 Main St. in Richmond.

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Building, restoration, and repair with epoxy

SCHEHERAZADE

By  tom pawlak — gbi technical advisor.

On a break from the Maine Boatbuilders Show in March, we visited Hodgdon Yachts, Inc. and found significant progress on their latest build, a 155′ Bruce King designed wood/epoxy ketch, named Scheherazade. This is Hodgdon Yachts’ largest wood/epoxy vessel to date. The project is roughly 60% larger than  Antonisa , the 124′ sailing yacht they launched last year.

Scheherazade is being built in Hodgdon’s new 20,000-square-foot facility located at the water’s edge in East Boothbay, Maine. A project this size would not have been possible in

Fore view of Scheherazade under construction in October 2000. The new Hodgdon Yacht facility.

Scheherazade aft view while under construction. The new Hodgdon Yacht facility has a 164′ x 50′ center bay, large enough to accommodate roll overs of large vessels with a 400-ton overhead crane. 100′ x 20′ wings on each side are three levels high.

their old shop, but the new building has a 164′ ™ 50′ center bay that is large enough to accommodate rollovers of large vessels and includes 100′ ™ 20′ wings on each side that are three levels high. A 400-ton overhead crane traverses the length of the main bay, allowing quick placement of large components. The overhead crane capability will play an important role in maintaining the tight three-and-a-half-year project schedule. Many of Scheherazade’s sub-assemblies are being fabricated off-site. Some are quite large and will require precise positioning.

Just minutes away, the original boat shop where Antonisa, Liberty, and many other fine vessels were built is now being used as a cabinet shop. Full-size mock sections of Scheherazade’s interior have been laid out there so craftsmen can build the furniture “in place” without actually being in the hull. Tim Hodgdon, president of Hodgdon Yachts, Inc., says building the interior while the hull is still under construction will greatly increase efficiency. Cleating and stick building inside an actual vessel takes additional time and can be a nightmare near the end of the project because of all the joiners required inside the vessel. Installing furniture that is completely finished will dramatically minimize the time required inside the boat.

Hodgdon had subcontracted other boatyards such as Goetz Marine Technologies and French & Webb to build components for Antonisa. With the expanded facility and crew, however, they plan to build more of Scheherazade’s components in house.

  Hull materials

Scheherazade’s hull is made of multiple layers of Douglas fir, western red cedar and WEST SYSTEM® epoxy. Total hull thickness is 3-1/2″. The first layer glued to the frames is vertical grain Douglas fir, 7/8″ thick and oriented longitudinally. The next four are 7/16″ thick and oriented diagonally, primarily western red cedar with occasional substitutions of Douglas fir in highly loaded sections of the hull. The last layer will be another layer of 7/8″ thick Douglas fir oriented longitudinally. The hull will be encapsulated with two layers of fiberglass cloth and epoxy before it is faired and finally rolled over.

The hull reinforcing members, frames and floors are made of multiple layers of vertical grain Douglas fir laminated with WEST SYSTEM epoxy. Carbon fiber is used between layers on some of the highly loaded members.

Using salvaged lumber For the hull and frames of Scheherazade, Hodgdon decided to use only lumber that had been processed from trees that had fallen from natural causes. He purchased through a firm specializing in processing windfall. Trees that met project specifications were found on the Olympic Peninsula.

The quality of this salvaged old growth lumber is very high. The Douglas fir trees used to produce the lumber for the frames and hull planking were over 600 years old. The western red cedar trees used for the diagonal planking were mined from the forest floor. Hodgdon was told that the trees had fallen at least 300 years ago; roots from full-grown trees surrounded sections of the cedar trees that were chosen. The trees settled into the forest floor and the forest had literally grown over them. Logs were cut to length from the well-preserved deadfalls and removed via helicopter. The steep mountain slopes on which the trees were found and the limited access made any other removal method impossible.

Constructing the deadwood laminate During our visit, the deadwood laminate under construction was formed by gluing multiple layers of 2″ thick Douglas fir lumber over a temporary forming jig. The deadwood will be created in 12″ thick segments with a layer of plastic being placed every 6 layers to act as a boundary layer to keep the glue from sticking. These 12″ thick layers will later be removed by driving wedges between the layers where the plastic was placed. Each layer will then receive the forty 2-1/2″ diameter holes that are required to allow it to be positioned over the keel bolts and glued into position. Once the deadwood laminate is complete and has been glued in place over the ballast keel, the ballast and deadwood assembly will be moved into position under the hull and eventually epoxy bonded to the hull. Once the two are joined, Scheherazade’s deck will be even with the second mezzanine of Hodgdon’s new facility, some 24′ above the main shop floor.

A crew applies one of four, diagonally oriented inner layers of 7/18″ thick western red cedar. The first and last layers are 7/8″ thick vertical grain Douglas fir, oriented longitudinally. Total hull thickness is 3 1/2″

Project plans call for the deck to be built in place after the hull is rolled over and after some of the larger sub-assemblies have been positioned and secured inside the hull.

The impressive scale of the project Length over all is 154’7″ with a beam of 28’6″. The draft will be 13’0″. Imagine the surface area that this works out to be. It all needs to be planked, faired, fiberglassed, faired again and painted. This would be about equivalent to planking, fiberglassing and fairing the side of the local library.

The main mast stands 174′ above the deck and the mizzen about 110′ above deck. The rig will be delivered by ship and/or barge. Sail area for the ketch rig will be 9,940 sq ft.

The ballast keel is about 38′ long and weighs 153,000 lb. (Antonisa’s keel was 41′ long and 106,000 lb.) It will be attached to the vessel with forty, stainless steel keel bolts and potted in with WEST SYSTEM® epoxy. (For more information on glued-in fasteners, see Hardware Bonding at the WEST SYSTEM web site). The 2″ diameter keel bolts range in length up to 8’6″ long. The lead keel was poured at Mars Metal in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. The keel was cast in a continuous pour. We were told it was the largest ever poured in North America if not the world.

See our article about the launch of  Scheherezade .

Hodgdon Tenders is uniquely positioned to bring the highest standards to the tender world. Using the finest materials and most innovative methods, tradition and technology are expertly blended. The outcome is extraordinary vessels of unrivaled performance, construction, and visual aesthetic.

The strength of Hodgdon's in-house design and engineering team allows for projects that range from fully custom and completely unique to time-tested designs.

Hodgdon offers limousine, open, beachlander, and fully-electric tenders from 6.5 to 12+ meters. Based in Maine in the USA and with a dedicated after-sales team, Hodgdon is prepared to provide worldwide service and support. 

An essential element to the most luxurious guest experience.

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Comfortable and easy beach access, without getting your feet wet.

Perfect for water sports or time relaxing on the water.

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Pre-engineered, all-electric versions of some of our most in-demand tenders.

Maserati TRIDENTE

Please contact us if you're looking for something completely custom & unique. 

OUTBOARD DEALERSHIP

YAMAHA OUTBOARD MOTORS

Hodgdon Yacht Services is a fully authorized dealer of Yamaha outboard motors, located in Midcoast Maine. After 29 years as an authorized Yamaha Service Center, we are now certified to sell the full line of engines, which ranges from 2.5 to 350 HP. Our team of technicians provide excellent service, are experienced with engine repowers, have comprehensive product knowledge, and can help with Yamaha outboard repair. We can also handle Yamaha parts and accessories installation.

Yamaha is dedicated to pushing outboard technology and creating a better boating experience. Their innovative motors lower ownership and operational costs, increase reliability, fuel efficiency, and ease of boating - offering more uninterrupted hours on the water.

Yamaha has been recognized with the National Marine Manufacturers Association Customer Satisfaction Index Award for excellence in customer satisfaction in the Outboard Engine category. The award has been presented fifteen consecutive times to Yamaha.

For pricing information or to learn more about the outboard motor that is right for you contact Nate Hopkins, Outboard Service Manager - 207-633-2970 or fill out the form below.

Click here to learn more about HYS outboard projects on our blog!

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