Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Somerset, Massachusetts on the Taunton River.[1] It primarily builds pilot boats 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.[2] The company built largely tugboats, pilot boats, and fishing vessels for the next several decades.[2] In 1977, Gladding-Hearn was the first American shipyard to launch a tug equipped with a Z-drive propulsion system,[3] 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.[1] 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.[1][2] In 1984, Gladding-Hearn became a licensee of designer Incat (now Incat Crowther), giving it access to designs for high speed catamaran vessels.[2] It has since built the majority of such vessels in service on the Eastern seaboard and Great Lakes.[1] As of 2016, Gladding-Hearn had built more than 400 ships, with 120 in active service for 38 operators.[3]