Shipyards Directory

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding

shipyard Somerset, MA, United States

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation is a family-owned shipyard on the Taunton River in Somerset, Massachusetts, building steel and aluminum commercial vessels for more than 70 years and counting over 446 vessels delivered. The yard is best known for pilot boats — more than 100 built, including over 30 of its 53-foot Chesapeake class — along with Incat Crowther-designed high-speed passenger catamarans, offshore wind crew transfer vessels, tugs, fireboats, patrol boats, research vessels and monohull ferries. It also carries out mid-life refits and repowering work on vessels it and others built. Design and engineering are handled in house, with plasma cutting, 3-D modeling and a 600-ton railway on site.

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation is a family-owned and operated shipyard founded in 1955 and located on the deepwater Taunton River in Somerset, Massachusetts. Co-founded by George Duclos with Pret Gladding and Richard Hearn, it is now led by a second generation of the Duclos family and reports more than 446 vessels built. The yard's pilot boat work is its best-known line — it says more of its launches operate in the United States than those of any other shipyard — and it has been a licensee of Australian designer Incat Crowther since the mid-1980s for high-speed catamarans. Roughly 90 percent of its business is stated to come from repeat customers.

Services

  • New construction in steel and aluminum
  • In-house naval architecture and engineering
  • Mid-life refits, repowering, repiping and rewiring, hull sandblasting and replating
  • 3-D modeling, in-house plasma cutting, and Zone Outfit Logic Technology (ZOLT) modular outfitting
  • Vessels customized to local run length, sea state, climate and boarding practices

Vessel Types

  • Pilot boats, 40-foot harbor launches to 75-foot station vessels; Chesapeake, Chesapeake MKII, Baltimore and Harbor classes; Ray Hunt Design deep-V hulls
  • Offshore wind crew transfer vessels from 12 m to 45 m, designed by Incat Crowther
  • High-speed aluminum catamaran ferries, water taxis and whale watchers, from small taxis to 600 passengers; steel monohull ferries
  • Tugs and dredge tenders, up to 60-ton bollard pull
  • Fireboats with 1,000 to 20,000 gpm pumping capacity, buildable to NFPA 1925
  • Police, patrol, port-security and boarding vessels from 30 to 75 feet
  • Coastal research vessels, 50 to 60 feet, with speeds of 22 knots or more

Facilities

  • 7-acre waterfront site on the Taunton River
  • 60,000 sq ft heated indoor fabrication with plasma cutting, press brakes and shears
  • 10,000 sq ft secure storage buildings; 4,200 sq ft office building
  • 600-ton marine railway and a 260-foot deep-draft pier
  • 35-ton self-propelled Hostar trailer for vessels under 60 feet; sheltered plate storage yard
  • Up to 100 employees

Location

  • 168 Walker Street, Somerset, MA 02725, USA
  • Shipping: 80 Francis Street, Somerset, MA 02725; Mail: Box 300, Somerset, MA 02726
  • Phone 1-508-676-8596