Mainers, a.k.a. people from Maine, are known for being modest. So you’ll have to excuse the team at Hodgdon Yachts if they don’t all remain reserved 100 percent of the time. Not only is the shipyard celebrating its 200th anniversary next year, but it’s delivering boats and yachts whose variety arguably remains unmatched.
Hodgdon Yachts was established in 1816 in the town of East Boothbay by Caleb Hodgdon, whose family still runs the yard today. In fact, current president Tim Hodgdon is the fifth generation of Hodgdons at the helm. Furthermore, that date makes Hodgdon Yachts the world’s oldest continuously operating yacht builder. From the day that Caleb Hodgdon opened the doors to build wooden schooners until now, the yard has delivered more than 400 private, commercial, and military vessels. They include the arctic explorer Bowdoin in 1921 and sub chasers for the U.S. Navy during World War I and II. In the yacht world, Hodgdon Yachts produced a number of the famous John Alden-designed offshore racers named Malabar from the 1920s and 1930s. Additional private yachts and megayachts have been built in collaboration with notable designers like Sparkman & Stephens, Hereshoff, and Bruce King. Among the most famous is the ketch-rigged sailing superyacht Asolare, launched as Scheherazade in 2003. There’s also a head-turning commuter-style motoryacht named Liberty.
Diversity like this remains at the heart of what Hodgdon Yachts does today. It handles nearly every aspect of design and construction in house. Spread among its various locations in Midcoast Maine are craftspeople experienced in fiberglass, cabinetry, painting, varnishing, canvas and upholstery, electrical systems, mechanical systems, and even outboard motor repair. It has a dedicated division called Hodgdon Defense Composites to address government vessel needs. Hodgdon Yacht Services was established last year following the acquisition of a local shipyard specializing in maintenance and repair. Hodgdon Interiors creates lightweight yacht interiors for the yard’s own projects as well as megayachts to 262 feet (80 meters) at other yards. Hodgdon Custom Tenders came along in 2011, delivering semi-custom and fully custom limo tenders—often in pairs—for clients around the world (above). Their construction extends to all hardware, like fully custom cleats.
Of course, it’s the fully custom yachting division, building composite projects to 197 feet (60 meters), that attracts the most attention. And for good reason. Besides the notable yachts mentioned above, there’s Comanche, the 100-foot (30.5-meter) maxi racer delivered last year to Jim Clark. She has one of the largest single-infusion hulls constructed anywhere in the world (below). The oven used to cure the hull and superstructure—made by Hodgdon itself—became the largest one in marine service in the United States, too. A yacht conceived and built not just to win races, but to smash records, Comanche set a new 24-hour record for the Transatlantic Race this year. She covered 618.01 nautical miles, bettering the previous record of 596.6.
Given the continuing popularity of sailing superyacht races, surely some current and prospective owners are sitting up and taking notice of Hodgdon Yachts’ achievements. Perhaps they’ll even commission a comfortable limo tender to use for spinning around the harbor with their bragging-rights trophy.
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