The First Hull We Ever Launched
Every yard has a first boat. Ours was a modest aluminum workboat, built in a single shed for a crew who needed it to come home every night. It is long retired now, but the way it was built set the measure for everything we have launched since.
One shed, one standard
There was no production line in those first years — just a shed, a few hands, and a stubborn idea of how a boat should be built. The first hull was framed and welded with the same rule we still keep: build it as if your own family is going aboard. That standard was set before we had any of the tools we have now, which is exactly why it has outlasted all of them.
What it taught us
That first boat taught lessons no drawing could — how aluminum really behaves under a working load, what crews actually need from a deck, where corners cost you and where they never can. Those lessons went straight into the second hull, and the third, and they are still embedded in how we lay out a boat today.
We've built bigger and faster since, but we've never built to a higher standard than that first one. We just held the line.
More Dispatches
Three Generations at the Bench
In a yard where the trade is handed down, some welds are taught by the same family that taught them a generation ago.
Forty Years on the Bayou
From a single covered shed to a full production yard — the people and habits behind four decades of hulls.
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.