Apprenticeship Program Welcomes a New Class
A new class of apprentices started on the floor this month, and with them the most important thing the yard makes besides boats: the next generation of people who know how to build them. Aluminum boatbuilding can't be learned from a manual — it has to be handed down at the bench.
Learning where the work happens
Our apprentices don't start in a classroom. From the first week they are on the floor alongside experienced fabricators, learning to read a drawing, strike an arc on aluminum, and understand why a joint is laid out the way it is. The skills come in the order the work demands them, taught by the people who do that work every day.
Why we invest in it
Skilled aluminum welders and fitters are hard to find and harder to keep, and the standard that defines a Breaux hull only survives if it is passed on deliberately. Training our own is how we protect that standard — and it gives people in our community a path into a real, durable trade. Several of our lead fabricators started exactly this way.
Every weld in this yard traces back to someone who taught it. The program is just us making sure that never stops.
More Dispatches
New CNC Plasma Table Comes Online
A new high-definition CNC plasma table cuts hull plate straight from the design files — faster, and far more precise.
Facility Expansion Increases Capacity
New covered bays allow concurrent construction of up to four 80+ foot vessels.
Twin Catamaran Ferries Head to the Coast
A pair of aluminum passenger catamarans left the yard together this week, bound for a coastal commuter route.