Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding is a

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...

located in Somerset, Massachusetts on the

Taunton River The Taunton River, historically also called the Taunton Great River, is a river in southeastern Massachusetts in the United States. It arises from the confluence of the Town River and Matfield River, in the town of Bridgewater. From there it ...

. It primarily builds

pilot boat A pilot boat is a type of boat used to transport maritime pilots between land and the inbound or outbound ships that they are piloting. Pilot boats were once sailing boats that had to be fast because the first pilot to reach the incoming ship ...

s and high-speed catamaran ferries. Gladding-Hearn was founded in 1954 by Preston Gladding and Richard Hearn, and delivered its first vessel, a fishing boat, in 1956. The company built largely tugboats, pilot boats, and fishing vessels for the next several decades. In 1977, Gladding-Hearn was the first American shipyard to launch a tug equipped with a Z-drive propulsion system, and in 1978 built the first pilot boat to a deep-V hull design by naval architect C. Raymond Hunt that became the industry standard in following years. In 1983, company vice president George Duclos bought out Gladding and Hearn and established the shipyard as a subsidiary of his family company, the Duclos Corporation. In 1984, Gladding-Hearn became a licensee of designer Incat (now Incat Crowther), giving it access to designs for high speed catamaran vessels. It has since built the majority of such vessels in service on the Eastern seaboard and Great Lakes. As of 2016, Gladding-Hearn had built more than 400 ships, with 120 in active service for 38 operators.

References

{{reflist Shipyards of Massachusetts Companies based in Massachusetts 1954 establishments in Massachusetts