The 62nd annual Boothbay Harbor Windjammer Days will take place on Sunday, June 23 through Saturday, June 29. This year we will celebrate our local boatbuilders and shipwrights. Please visit boothbayharborwindjammerdays.org for the full schedule of events.

Hodgdon Shipbuilding began in 1816. As I like to say, that is four years before Maine became a state. My career started in 1971 when I was still in high school, working summers and school vacations in my father’s (Sonny Hodgdon) small yard of half a dozen or so employees. He was a traditional “plank on frame” wooden boatbuilder. The first new boat I worked on was Sea Fever, that we built for Bobby Brown who was portrayed in the book/movie “The Perfect Storm.” I learned a lot working with those traditional boatbuilders including my father, Neil Jones, our bookkeeper Alice Thompson (who was the daughter of Boothbay Harbor boatbuilder Norman Hodgdon), and many others. Going back to 1816, I believe the company has built something north of 460 boats of all types. Most were built well before me by skilled wooden boatbuilders, building “state of the art” vessels of the day. How they built the boats that they did, I will never know. It is hard to imagine what they would think about boatbuilding today.

After graduating from Wentworth Institute in 1975, I spent two years offshore lobstering on the edge of the continental shelf on a 50-foot boat that we built for “Marbleheader” Hugh Bishop. I later spent a season swordfishing on Sea Fever and following that, fishing with my good friend Charlie Begin. I learned a lot about working hard on the water with these guys and have tremendous respect for all the hardworking fishermen and mariners.

Always knowing that I would eventually rejoin the yard full time, in 1984 I became president of the company, and we began to “reinvent” the business by establishing a relationship with world class Californian yacht designer Bruce King who now lives in East Boothbay. Bruce has a keen eye, and we built a number of yachts to his designs including the 80-foot M/Y Liberty, 124-foot sloop Antonisa, and 155-foot ketch Scheherazade. Subsequently, we grew the company to five divisions, building vessels from large sailing yachts with extraordinary interiors to an advanced composite “technology demonstrator” for the U.S. Navy Special Forces/Office of Naval Research in partnership with UMaine, as well as other contracts. Between 2010 and 2014 we built two very complex, 83-foot carbon/Kevlar 5,400 HP, triple waterjet vessels and we delivered Comanche, a 100-foot advanced composite super-maxi. Comanche smashed the transatlantic crossing record by a monohull shaving approximately 27 hours off the previous six-day record as well as setting various other performance sailing records. At peak, the company grew to 150 talented and highly skilled people from managers, joiners, wood carvers, painters, systems people, advanced composite technicians, etc. including a team of in-house designers and engineers to support our yard’s construction. I was fortunate to be involved with this group of boatbuilders. It was a challenging but exciting time in large part due to the talents and innovation of our people from the Boothbay region, the state of Maine, and elsewhere.

We founded the Shipyard Cup in 2002 to bring superyacht sailing to Boothbay Harbor for boats over 70 feet which ran for 11 years. SYC Classics Challenge continues today as a somewhat revised event that still includes impressive sailing that is great for the Boothbay region. It is part of the BHYC annual regatta.

Today we have downsized the company to 65-70 employees and are focused on the more predictable service side of our business and the still challenging but less risky superyacht tender business. We still have a very talented group across the company. This year, among other contracts in progress, we delivered an all-electric, carbon fiber 35-foot recreational boat and we remain a diverse company, being the only yard in the U.S. building infused superyacht limousines and tenders, under the production leadership of Robbie Ham and team. Our service yard (which includes the marinas in Boothbay Harbor and Southport) is busy and known for quality/customer service thanks to GM/CFO Don O’Grady and our talented, dedicated staff. My daughter, Audrey, is managing director of boatbuilding and sales/marketing director of the consolidated company. Her husband, Caleb, is in the engineering department and manages customer service and support.