The business built most of its notable vessels under the name, "Hodgdon Brothers", through the 1970s and then, with the advent of Timothy Hodgdon and diversification, continued under the corporate banner of "Hodgdon Shipbuilding."
Hodgdon Brothers The vessels built in East Boothbay at the Hodgdon Brothers shipyard were predominantly wood construction and included fishing vessels, an arctic schooner, small naval vessels, and several yachts.
Schooners Hodgdon Brothers yard was building wooden schooners well into the 20th century, they included: • The
fishing schooner,
Elizabeth W. Hunan, was the last of a series of five vessels built for the Nunan family, which ran a fishing enterprise out of
Cape Porpoise, Maine.
Naval ships Hodgdon Brothers built wood-hulled naval patrol boats, starting in
World War I through the
Korean War. Wooden hulls do not activate magnetic detonators on
mines or
torpedoes. They were, as follows: • Two
SC-1-class submarine chasers, SC-137—commissioned December 14, 1917—and SC-138—commissioned January 24, 1918. The
SC-1 class was a class of
submarine chasers produced during
World War I for the
United States Navy in order to combat attacks by German
U-boats, with 441 boats built from 1917 to 1919. They were overall and carried one
3-inch (76.2-mm)/23-caliber gun mount, two
Colt .30 caliber (7.62 mm)
machine guns and one
Y-gun depth charge projector. • A
Accentor-class minesweeper, in partnership with neighboring shipyard, Goudy and Stevens. It was named,
USS Combat (AMc-69), launched on 6 October 1941 and renamed
USS Bulwark (AMc-68). It carried two .50 cal.
M2 Browning machine guns. • Twelve in the 1950s.
Yachts Hodgdon Brothers specialized in building wooden yachts. The 1960s began a transition to fiberglass yachts. • The 67-foot motor yacht,
Maimelee, was at its launching in 1961 the largest fiberglass yacht in the world. The hull was molded in England, shipped to East Boothbay and finished by Hodgdon Brothers. It was equipped with twin 308-horsepower diesel engines, air conditioning for cruising in southern waters and an electronic suite that included a
radio direction finder, a
fathometer and
radar. and military vessel construction and composite components for vessels under the name, Hodgdon Defense Composites.
Yachts The company's yacht division is known as "Hodgdon Yachts"; notable projects include: •
Comanche—100-foot monohull, launched October, 2014—was designed by VPLP and Guillaume Verdier and was completed within 13 months. It placed third out of 47 sailing superyachts in the 2015
St Barths Bucket Regatta, a "gentlemen's" yacht race. •
Scheherazade— ketch, launched September, 2003—was designed by naval architect, Bruce King, and built with composite construction, using "western red cedar, Douglas fir, divinycell, balsa core and carbon, all epoxied and vacuum bagged" to mold the hull structure. The interior features sycamore and walnut with many carved decorative features.
Scheherazade participated in the 2008 Superyacht Cup Ulysses Nardin in
Palma de Mallorca and, in 2012 and 2013, twice won the Shipyard Cup in Boothbay Harbor. It was renamed
Asolare in 2014. •
Antonisa— sloop, launched August, 1999—was designed by Bruce King for an Italian owner, who reportedly was drawn to Hodgdon's reputation. It features detailed interior and exterior woodwork—matched with exotic, advanced materials that include aluminum honeycomb composites and carbon-fiber—and a pipe organ in the cabin. The design employs a narrow beam to allow the craft to slice through seas at a higher speed than vessels of similar displacement. The hull is laminated with cedar and mahogany. The construction saves weight with an aluminum honeycomb deck having a teak veneer that resembles traditional wood deck planking. Additionally, the underwater foils and shaft struts are of carbon fiber, instead of bronze.
Tenders yacht,
A2, with Hodgdon Yachts "Mini Venetian Limo Tender" As a result of building a custom
yacht tender—a vessel that ferries passengers from a large vessel to shore—for
Steven Spielberg's super yacht,
Seven Seas, Hodgdon saw a market for such craft and developed two tender sizes in two configurations—open and "limo" (with a roof that raises up)—from .
Electric vessels In 2022, Hodgdon began building the Vita LION
"performance electric day boat," which can carry eight passengers at a 22-knot cruise speed, using two electric motor drives. Vita's yacht was designed in England and is built in Italy. Its 234 kWh lithium batteries can be charged in under an hour, according to company specs.
Military vessels UAV The company's defense products division is known as "Hodgdon Defense Composites". On January 11, 2008 Hodgdon and the
U.S. Navy unveiled an experimental version of the
Mark V Special Operations Craft, designated the
Mk V.1, designed to reduce the number of injuries sustained by sailors and
SEALs during the operation of the aluminum version of the vessel. Nicknamed the MAKO, the vessel was developed by a subsidiary of Hodgdon Shipbuilding, in collaboration with the
University of Maine's Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center. It features a hull made of layers of carbon fiber, a foam core and an outer layer of Kevlar for additional strength. It was constructed and launched at the Hodgdon Yachts East Boothbay facility. The MAKO is lighter than the current Mk V. The
Office of Naval Research funded the prototype "to compare the properties of composite construction with aluminum" In 2012, the Hodgdon Defense Composites division received several military contracts to produce rescue boats that resemble
personal water craft, small enough to be air-dropped from a
C-130 military cargo plane, yet able to penetrate rough surf. The 12-foot vessel is called the Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft (GARC) and employs a 143-horsepower engine, driving a
pump-jet. Such craft reportedly have a range of up to at and can carry four people. The craft was developed for the United States
Air Force Special Operations Command. ==References==