The John’s Bay built TWILIGHT getting a new coat of paint at Royal River Boat Yard.

This is the model for the 55-foot power catamaran that Brion Reiff will be building this winter. She is being built for a customer from New Jersey.

Peter Buxton of Buxton Boats is applying the final coat for the topsides of this 32-foot lobster yacht. She will be launched the second week of September.

Front Street Shipyard, Belfast, ME

        ABIDE was launched the first week of September and her owners went on their first cruise along the coast of Maine this year. Their first port of call was Somes Sound. They had been in the yard for a month. They were hauled out and had a complete bottom job done, some hydraulic work, refrigeration work and general electrical items repaired. They were to return the following week before heading to Newport, Rhode Island. They would then head down to the Caribbean for the winter.

Just launched was TANGO, a Nordhavn 76, which they put a coach-roof extension on so as to install solar panels to extend her power abilities. They had added lithium-ion batteries three years ago and the owner loved them so now he wants to add solar power to help charge them.

Another Nordhavn 76, TRIXIE, is still in the shop and they are doing her bottom, basic maintenance items, windlass work, and repairing the air conditioning.

They just hauled a C&B 78, which is going to get her annual maintenance before heading south for the winter. She will also have her stern thruster repaired, bow thruster serviced, and rudder inspection. They also have to reattach something under the keel that is missing.

RED SKY, a Swan 100, will be coming in for a full paint job, top and bottom, before heading south for the winter. They have already unstepped her masts and will be hauling her within a couple of days.

The 94-foot SAPHIRA, the former SONNY III built by Brooklin Boat Yard in 2018, has just arrived at the yard. She will be hauled in a few days and they will drop her rudder and replace the bearings, change the bow pulpit system, upgrade the anchors and add a windlass. They will also do her annual maintenance.

Two Queen Ships 63s were in for the summer to be serviced. They are already done and have been relaunched.

A 65-foot custom composite boat, which was built in Thailand, is in for some serious modifications. They are cutting her open. She already has a new battery system, the next level beyond lithium. They are now gutting the main salon, cabins and heads. They are also cutting off most of the flybridge so they can rearrange the furniture on the flybridge. She will have a solar roof installed, meaning that the new hardtop will be 90 percent solar panels that will get 90 percent of their power from the top from the sun and 10 percent of the power will be reflective from the bottom side. These are state of the art solar panels. Then they will be refairing and repainting the entire boat. This project will take most the winter to complete.

The classic sailing yacht LONE FOX is in. She has steel framing with teak planking. Most of the frames, deck beams and chainplates, as well as some of the planking, will be replaced.

Just finished was an upper paint job on a 49-foot Whisper Jet. They now need to get her engines running before she gets donated. The owners have just purchased a new Eco 38, which will be commissioned at the yard.

With fall approaching so does the hauling season and this will go on for the next several months. Still to arrive this fall, are two big catamarans: the 80-footer PRINCESS CHLOE and the 72-footer NAMASTE. They will be hauled for their normal maintenance. A bigger project this fall will be on a Dogger Bank 87, which they are hauling mid-September. She is getting some engine work, new pumps, plumbing repairs, hydraulic work, a Maretron System and paint. This project will take until December to complete. She will then be relaunched and head south and come back next year for more work.

For almost three years, the steam yacht CANGARDA, built by Pusey & Jones of Delaware in 1901, has been sitting in front of building 5. Well, after a couple of years of being on the market, she has been sold and will be heading to Istanbul, Turkey. The new owner is supposedly someone who has one of the largest collections of steam engines. CANGARDA has been uncovered and is getting ready to be launched. She will then be loaded onto a heavy lift vessel for her passage across the Atlantic sometime this fall. This will make movement around the yard and into the buildings much easier.

If this has not been enough to keep them busy they will be starting a 38-foot boat for the Navy, an autonomous project, but that is all they can say at this time. They will also be starting a 42-foot Wesmac walkaround style pleasure boat. The hull has arrived and now they have got to build the deck mould and begin putting her together. She will be powered with a 1,300-hp MAN.

Oceanville Boatworks, Sunrise, Maine

        In the shop they have a Mussel Ridge 48, that they are finishing off as a lobster boat for a fisherman from Boothbay Harbor. The hull arrived in May, but they did not start on it until July with about five months to go before she is ready to go over. This one is a little more complicated as she will have accommodations for overnighting. She will have a berth forward, a head with shower and a small galley. The owner and his wife like to take get-away cruises on the weekends. She will have lobster tanks, that will hold 28 crates below the platform, 14 per side, a 750-gallon fuel tank, a lazarette and rope locker. As for power she will have a 1,000-hp MAN and should push her along quite well. They are hoping the owner ops to install the generator now since everything is open and the job would be real easy. However, the owner was thinking of doing this at a later date.

The last boat they finished was a Calvin Beal 44, finished out as a tuna boat and launched last spring. She is back and is hauled out so they can add lifting rails. The owner did not want them when she was under construction, but after using her for awhile he has decided she would sail better with them. Instead of bolting them on, they have been fiberglassed on. This boat took a year to build as she has nice accommodations. These include: a large V-berth, hanging lockers, head with shower, and a nice galley. She is powered with a 750-hp John Deere and cruises at 22 knots.

After this boat left the shop, a friend of the owner of the Calvin Beal 44, who he sold his old boat to, came in to have the curtain on the sides and back of the house removed and a winter back installed. On the winter back they added another steering station and then they raised up the pilothouse deck so the entire platform was at one level.

After the Mussel Ridge 48 is done, they have a Duffy 35 and an Osmond 50 to do. The Osmond 50 will be finished out as a lobster boat for a fisherman out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She will have some basic accommodations, but they do not think she will have a head.

Brion Rieff, Boatbuilder, Brooklin

        It is a pleasure to visit Brion Reiff’s shop as he always has something interesting going on.

In the main shop they had a well-appointed pocket pilothouse cruiser built on the West Coast, which was nearing completion. When she arrived, she had 36 broken frames, some planking and wiring problems and needed an engine job. Those were repaired and they were able to locate a new old inventory engine. With these issues completed they added 18 inches to the house and you have to look hard to see where the addition starts. Other items that were done include: new chafing gear on the front, new drive shaft, new cutlass bearing, hooked up all of the electronics again, mounted a roof rack for a kayak, added a jib, installed a new outside helm station, and removed the old head and holding tank and put in a new composting Airhead. They are now down to the final details, some electrical and joiner work, plumbing and paint and varnish.

Some years ago Brion designed a power catamaran and now he has someone from New Jersey who wants him to build one 55-feet in length. She will sport a centre console and be powered with twin 600-hp outboards with pod drives that are controlled with a joystick. The customer owns a resort in New Jersey and wants to be able to take people out on a booze cruise at night and the next morning go out water skiing. There will be a lot of seating, several bars with a head built into the centre console. Because this is a passenger carrying vessel it will be Coast Guard certified. The plans have been submitted to the Coast Guard and they come and inspect the parts and pieces as they are built periodically. They are currently making the frames and once they are set up they will cover the bottom with several layers of plywood and the topsides will be cedar strips covered with fiberglass.

In the front of the shop there is a fiberglass Alerion 26, which was built by a company in Rhode Island. She had a problem with her balsa cored decks, which was now missing the balsa core. The deck was removed and they cleaned up the interior before putting down a wooden Alerion deck with laminated oak deck beams. This boat did not have the traditional toe rails and multi-part step so Brion built that into it. The house top had been fiberglass and not true to the original design so Brion built a true-to original Alerion mahogany cabin and house top with beaded overhead with mahogany beams and a mahogany slider. The deck water used to drain into the bilge. They have sealed that with a legitimate deck with a teak overlay and now the water drains and is pumped overboard. She also had a new head installed. It is down to the final details and that includes some joiner work and paint. She is scheduled to be finished and back in the water later this summer.

Out in the back shed there is a 6 meter. Brandon, Brion’s son, is working on that project. They think that they need to tighten the keel bolts and then do some annual maintenance.

Sitting out front are two Herreshoff S-boats and there is another one out back. They are looking for three owners so that they can do them all at once, which would create a savings in time and money.

The 8-metre, which was finished last summer and has been racing up on the Great Lakes may want some additional work done. The owner was thinking of making a keel with a shorter wing span and a little more sweep back. Brion took the plug and sent it out and they have made some modifications, but they are now waiting on the go ahead from the owner.

Richard Stanley @Yankee Marina-Yarmouth, ME

        Across the street from the big Native American in South Freeport New Meadows Marine had a store and work shop for several years until they sold it last year. It is now privately owned and inside is one of the owner’s boats MERGANSER, a Will Frost designed and built 34-foot lobster boat. Richard was there working on this boat much of the summer doing mostly cosmetic work. The owner wanted the deck sanded down to make it look like new. The teak was getting thin and the edge nails were beginning to show through. Richard and Sawyer Theriault got her prettied up and then went to work on the hull. Unfortunately, the hull had dried out because the boat was sitting on a cement floor with a heater blowing on her from above. Richard put plastic wrap around her waterline to hold the moisture in and brought in five humidifiers. This helped, but Richard really rectified this issue by bringing in a steamer, which swelled her right up. When they were finished with this she looked just like a fiberglass hull, she was that smooth. When she was launched she hardly leaked.

Richard and Sawyer have just moved over to work on the 60-foot motor yacht IROQUOIS for the same owner, which is in one of the buildings at Yankee Marina. Richard said, “I am trying to get things started. Right now I am in the process of trying to get the struts bolted up to the hull. I have realigned the shafts so they are now even with each other. One strut I have got to send out and get a piece added, about ¾-inch. This will get it to match up with the other one. I think that I am going to have to take the cutlasses out of the struts because they don’t line up. One shaft you couldn’t even turn it with a Stilson wrench. Someone tried doing it with a laser and you can’t do that. You can get it close. You have got to line that up by hand and eyeball. You have got to push the shaft in all directions and if you can push it in all directions and it hits the outside of the cutlass everywhere, then you have got it right. If you can’t push it anywhere then it is not lined up. Anyway, I’ve got portholes in the drawings and they don’t coincide with the portholes on the boat. I talked to the designer and he said, “We had to move a bunch of them because they weren’t in the right place.” The drawing is not the same as the boat, everything is almost a frame off. So, he is coming next week to go over that.”

Then Richard said they were thinking of stripping and covering the hull with a cloth so they can use a high-tech paint. Richard pointed out that if they cover the hull with a cloth they are going to have to take off all the rails and that is going to take a lot of time. He thought it best just to use Epiphanes mono-urethane, which should hold up two or three years.

The big aspect of this project is going to be putting the interior in. She is almost all stripped out, but then they need to get the systems in, like the bow thruster, wiring, plumbing and tankage. He did say that they have some outside help that will be doing some of the interior pieces and that will save a lot of time.

They are hoping to have this project done by next spring.

Another project that Richard has been looking at is rebuilding MADDY SUE, which was built by Chester Clement for Francis Spurling in the 1930s. He said that she needs her keel replaced, as well as some frames and a number of planks. This project was going to be done with Richard and another builder in Southwest Harbor, but that person has backed out. Another person has offered to assist, but Richard said he needed to talk to the owner to see where he was at