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]

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