When it comes to modern boatbuilding, this quaint little village by the sea, East Boothbay in Maine, has reached the Space Age.
Hodgdon Yachts’ latest endeavor is to build one of the most ambitious racing yachts, from material so high end, it can send astronauts into orbit. Literally.
“This is really aerospace technology. There are not many boats that are built this way,” Tim Hodgdon said. “You’ve got to have a really good reason to want to build something light and stiff and strong to want to put this kind of effort into it.”
And that really good reason means our local workforce is pulling out all the stops, which might just put Hodgdon Yachts on the books for building the super yacht that shatters world records.
Hodgdon, the company president, and the fifth generation of East Boothbay boatbuilders, said it took “massive capital investments” last year to renovate the School Street facilities from a boat shop into a giant oven. That’s right, Hodgdon Yachts is now an industrial sized oven where technicians, builders and engineers work around the clock.
Touring the Hodgdon Yachts facility is a bit like walking through Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but instead of snozzberries, there are thermal couplers, vacuum bags and pre-preg carbon-fiber composites.
“Pre-preg” is a term frequently used in Hodgdon Yachts. It means pre-impregnated composite fibers, which are used to build incredibly light and sturdy carbon infused hulls. From a completely uninvolved layman’s perspective, a carbon hull looks sort of like the world’s most expensive piece of Styrofoam.
In reality, making pre-preg carbon-fiber composites is a high-tech process that not too many, outside of those in NASA and the United States Air Force are doing right now. The method involves an elaborate matrix of epoxies and fibers that come embedded in frozen sheets that then get baked at temperatures of 100 C. The fibers fuse under heat and pressure and the sheets form an incredibly strong surface. Hence the need for an oven that stretches 120 feet long and 40 feet wide. Inside it houses the futuristic 100-foot carbon hull dubbed “NewCubed.”
“This whole thing is specifically intended to be the fastest mono-hull ever built,” Hodgdon said. “It’s built to crush records.”
And if you think it doesn’t get any more sophisticated than that, you’re wrong. Joining Hodgdon Yachts’ local workforce is an international group Hodgdon calls the SWAT Team. Sequestered in the back room, the SWAT Team is made up of a bunch of tech savvy people monitoring the many components that come with building a record breaking ship.
So how on earth did this contract land in Hodgdon Yachts’ lap? Read more.
Sailing With Devious, 2014 