Eastern Shipbuilding Group is a

shipbuilder Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

based in

Panama City Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, i ...

, Florida that operates facilities in the Florida Panhandle in Panama City, Allanton, and

Port St. Joe Port St. Joe is a city and the county seat of Gulf County, Florida, United States. It is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 98 and State Road 71. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,357. History St. Joseph was founded in 18 ...

. The company was founded in 1976 as Eastern Marine by Brian R. D’Isernia as a builder of fishing vessels, and began diversifying into constructing custom ships in the 1980s, beginning with the delivery of its first

platform supply vessel A platform supply vessel (PSV) is a ship specially designed to supply offshore oil platform, oil and gas platforms and other offshore installations. They typically range from in length and are distinguished by the large open deck area used to st ...

(PSV) for the offshore oil and gas industry in 1981. In 1988, the company shut down, but was re-founded at the Panama City shipyard in 1997 as Eastern Shipbuilding Group, and purchased the former-

Halter Marine VT Halter Marine, Inc. was a shipbuilding company and an American subsidiary of ST Engineering. It was located in Pascagoula, Mississippi. It specialized in ship design and construction and served both public and private clients, including the Un ...

shipyard facility in Allanton in 2000. As of 2009, Eastern employed about 900 people at its two shipyards, covering about 151 acres. Eastern primarily built tugboats and oil industry support vessels through the 2000s and into the 2010s, delivering 93 tugboats and 33 PSVs and similar vessels between 2006 and 2016. In 2012, it began leasing a site in Port St. Joe for post-launch outfitting. By 2016, the company had annual sales of about $300 million, with 1,700 employees and facilities that covered 326 acres. While its primary market remains offshore supply vessels, Eastern received two major orders for other ship types in the mid 2010s—the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

's Offshore Patrol Cutter in 2016, and the

Staten Island Ferry The Staten Island Ferry is a fare-free passenger ferry route operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. The ferry's single route runs through New York Harbor between the Boroughs of New York City, New York City boroughs of Manh ...

's ''Ollis''-class ferry 2017. The Shipbuilding Company according to their website manufacture- Tugs/Towboats, Speciality Vessels,

Fireboats A fireboat or fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipme ...

, Offshore Supply Vessels,

Ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

Fishing Vessels A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals (e.g. shrimps/prawns, krills, coleoids, etc.) in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial, arti ...

And Cutter-Patrol Craft.

References

{{Reflist Shipyards of the United States Companies based in Panama City, Florida Industrial buildings and structures in Florida