Builders
The shipyards and manufacturers that built these vessels.
Bath Iron Works
Maine's premier shipyard and one of the last places in America that still builds warships from the keel up. BIW has been turning out destroyers for the U.S. Navy since before most people had electricity. Today they're the primary builder of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, arguably the most capable surface combatants afloat.
Bertram Boats
Dick Bertram took Ray Hunt's deep-V hull design and built an empire around it. The original Bertram 31 Moppie won the 1960 Miami-Nassau race in brutal seas that wrecked the competition, and the deep-V revolution was on. Before Bertram, offshore meant getting beaten to death. After Bertram, offshore meant you could fish in conditions that used to send you home.
Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding
Bethlehem Steel's shipbuilding division was the naval-industrial complex before the term existed. Operating yards in Quincy, Massachusetts; San Francisco; Staten Island; Baltimore; and Sparrows Point, Maryland, Bethlehem built and repaired an astonishing volume of warships and merchant vessels across both World Wars. The Fore River yard in Quincy alone produced battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers for decades.
Boston Whaler
The unsinkable legend. Dick Fisher founded Boston Whaler around a foam-core hull construction that made the boats virtually impossible to sink. The famous demonstration was sawing a Whaler in half and watching both halves float and remain operational with an outboard. It wasn't a gimmick. That foam sandwich hull changed recreational boating by making small boats genuinely safe for average people.
Chesapeake Bay Builders
Not a single company but a living tradition. Chesapeake Bay builders are the families and small yards that have been building skipjacks, bugeyes, log canoes, and deadrise workboats for over two centuries. These boats were designed by eye and built by hand, shaped by the specific demands of the Bay: shallow water, oyster tonging, crabbing, and weather that can turn ugly fast. The deadrise workboat is the regional masterpiece, a hull form so perfectly adapted to its environment that it hasn't fundamentally changed in a hundred years.
Chris-Craft
The oldest name in American recreational boating. Chris Smith started building duck boats in Algonac, Michigan, and the family turned that into the most iconic boat brand in the country. The mahogany runabouts of the 1930s through 1960s are the boats people picture when they think 'classic boat.' Chris-Craft made the transition to fiberglass in the late 1960s and survived, though some purists never forgave them.
Don Aronow / Cigarette Racing
Don Aronow was a former New Jersey construction magnate who moved to Miami, started building go-fast boats, and dominated offshore powerboat racing in the 1960s and 70s. He founded multiple brands on NE 188th Street in North Miami Beach (aka 'Thunderboat Row'), including Magnum Marine, Donzi, and his most famous creation, Cigarette Racing Team. The boats were fast, loud, beautiful, and immediately adopted by drug runners, which Aronow probably knew and definitely didn't mind.
Electric Boat
The submarine company. Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut has built more submarines than any other yard in the Western world. A division of General Dynamics, EB is responsible for every class of U.S. Navy nuclear submarine from the Nautilus forward. If it dives and carries a nuclear reactor, EB probably built it or designed it.
Higgins Industries
Andrew Higgins built the boat that won World War II. The LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) was a shallow-draft, bow-ramp landing craft that put troops on beaches from North Africa to Normandy to Okinawa. Eisenhower himself said Higgins was the man who won the war. The design came from Higgins' experience building shallow-water boats for trappers and oilmen in the Louisiana bayous.
Kaiser Shipyards
Henry Kaiser had never built a ship before the war. Didn't matter. He applied industrial mass production to shipbuilding and cranked out Liberty Ships and escort carriers faster than the Germans could sink them. At peak, Kaiser's yards in Richmond, California and Portland, Oregon were launching a new ship every few days. The SS Robert E. Peary was assembled in four days, fifteen hours.
New York Shipbuilding Corporation
Despite the name, the yard was in Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. New York Ship was one of the great American shipyards of the 20th century, building everything from battleships to aircraft carriers to ocean liners. At its peak during WWII, the yard employed 35,000 workers and launched cruisers, carriers, and destroyers at a pace that helped turn the tide in the Pacific.
Newport News Shipbuilding
The yard that builds aircraft carriers. Newport News is the only shipyard in the Western Hemisphere capable of building nuclear-powered carriers. Located in Virginia, it has built every US Navy carrier since USS Enterprise (CVN-65).