Blount Boats by ProactivePublications

pany’s human resources department, her nephew is an engineer in the company, and Ms Blount herself has a background in finances and accounting behind her name as ThePresident.company has a comprehensive inhouse design and engineering department that plays a key role in Blount Boats’ ability to build virtually any kind of vessel. In 74 years of operation an impressive variety of ships have left the yard, including fer ries (passenger and vehicle), harbour tugs, fishing boats, small cruise vessels, dining vessels, and even a small ice breaker. The company has firm plans to increase its covered space and intends to build a whole new covered workshop, pending the necessary approvals from town and state agencies. A smelly pile of clam shells

BUILDING

Blount Boats is a full-service shipyard a nd manufacturer of bespoke, commercial aluminium and steel long-lifespan vessels of the highest quality, up to 220ft. “We’re capable of building all sorts of types of vessels,” confirmed company President, Marcia Blount. “We’re only limited by the size of our yard and the depth of the water on the Warren River.”

A SHIPBUILDING

The shipyard is located on six acres of waterfront land, containing two large workshops and an EPA-approved paint tent. In total, it boasts 50 highly skilled veteran staff members, ranging from engineers to the actual production staff. The company remains privately owned and in the control of the Blount family with all five of the orig inal Blount siblings still involved in the business: Ms Blount’s sister runs the com

Today, the Blount family has a reputation for building some of the finest, toughest and best-loved vessels in North America,

2 Blount Boats BLOUNT BOATS I PROFILE

The story of Blount Boats, in the picturesque town of Warren in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, has the most unlikely of beginnings that includes a hurricane and a great big pile of clam shells. Marcia Blount is the company’s President and also the daughter of its founder, Luther H Blount. She sat down with Richard Hagan to share the company’s epic history and highlights, and to discuss its latest exciting chapter.

Blount Boats 3 but according to Ms Blount, the family has been earning a living at the shipyard site for over a hundred years. “The land we’re on belonged to my great grandmother,” she explained. “Our family were oystermen on Narragansett Bay and lived and worked on this six acres of land.”

Ferrying in the end of the war

The twenty-something-year-old Luther Blount leapt into action to help his brother : working on his grandmother’s land next to the river, he built a hopper barge from 55-gallon (220 litre) drums that he then used to transport and dispose of the shells further down the bay. “It worked! They got rid of all of the clam shells and everybody was happy,” said Ms Blount, adding, “And by the way, Nelson’s clam chowder business is now Blount Fine Foods – a major company!”

On the back of the success with the con struction of the hopper barge for the clam shells, Mr Blount Sr placed an advert for his boatbuilding services in a local maritime publication. His first order soon arrived, designing and building a lube oil tanker for a local customer. Further enquiries soon followed and the business of Blount Boats was born. The end of the war had brought a surge in demand for commercial vessels. “The ship yards had all been building naval vessels for the war and not much else, so there was a huge demand for a lot of vessels, especially ferries,” she noted. Blount Boats met this demand with a series of 65ft passenger and vehicle ferry builds, but Ms Blount highlighted, one in “Theparticular.mostfamous ferry boat we built was the Miss Liberty, delivered in 1953. She was built to take visitors to the Statue of Liberty in New York City, travelling from the Battery to the Statue. I went on its inaugural cruise when I was seven years old. She’s actually still running but under a new name, and

World War II began shortly afterwards, during which Nelson Blount opened a business in the area, making clam chowder (soup) to feed the troops at the various army camps nearby. “When my father came back from the war, Nelson, his brother, was processing clams up the street and there were all these clam shells lying around,” she explained. “He’d built up a huge pile of clam shells and the fathers of the town told Nelson to do some thing about the smelly shells.”

But all of that changed when Narragansett Bay and the surrounding region were rav aged by the deadly 1938 New England Hurricane which to this day, remains one of the most destructive tropical cyclones to ever strike the area. “It caused a tsunami that ripped up the floor of the whole bay and destroyed the oyster population. It ruined the family business,” Ms Blount recalled.

The arrival of wind energy

Over the decades that followed, Blount Boats built an impressive variety of robust, sturdy and reliable vessels, but the major turning point for the company arrived in 2010 with the rise of the offshore wind industry and a visit from another shipyard. “South Boats from the Isle Of Wight came to see us in 2010,” Ms Blount explained. “They were the premier builder of crew transfer vessels in Europe and had devel oped various innovations, including a spe cial bow, for service on the wind farms off the UK. We signed a licensing agreement with them to build South Boats models.” In 2016, Blount Boats delivered the first boat built under the South Boats license, for use at the first wind farm in the United States. “We were in the right place, at the right time, and we recog nised the opportunity. That vessel, Atlantic Pioneer, is still operating flawlessly,” Ms Blount commented. A second vessel built under license with Chartwell Marine Ltd was subsequently built for Siemens’ two turbines off the Virginia coast and named The Endeavour. It was delivered in 2021. The delivery of those two vessels would prove to be a major milestone for the com pany. It unequivocally demonstrated Bloun t Boats’ technical and manufacturing prowess to the demanding, fast-growing offshore wind industry and it cemented the yard’s ability to reliably deliver the kind of robust vessels required for offshore duty. “There’s a lot of trust required to be successful in this business,” Ms Blount confided. “It takes several years for people to get to know you and your product. These are complex vessels and buyers want to ensure that they’re in the right place to build their boat. We’ve carefully managed our customer relationships and as a result , many have continued working with us for years. Once they build with us, they build repeatedly with us; they keep coming back.”

Building a new era Ms Blount heralded the construction of those four new CTVs as being the start of a new era for the firm. “For us, it’s huge, and to have a backlog is a wonderful thing. We’re now in a time where there’s substantial demand for these CTVs. All sorts of vessels are needed for

Meanwhile, in 2021, Blount Boats secured an order for four new G Class offshore crew transfer vessels (CTVs), from American Offshore Services (a joint venture between Sweden’s Northern Offshore Services and American stakeholders). The four vessels are a first in the US and are hybrid-ready, boasting a special hull compartment that will accommodate battery banks in future.

4 Blount Boats

BLOUNT BOATS I PROFILE since her delivery, she’s taken about 60 million people to the statue!”

“We’ve obviously built many others like her,” she continued. “In fact, we built most of the fleet that goes from the Battery to the Statue, but she’s one of our most famous.”

Blount Boats 5

BLOUNT BOATS I PROFILE 6 Blount Boats wind farms and many of them are much larger than what we’re able to build, but in the niche that we’re in, these CTVs of 100150ft is probably the category that we’ll be building and maintaining for the next five to ten years.”

In May 2022, the company also celebrated another first: the completion and delivery of a 90ft icebreaker buoy tender for the State of Maryland that had been under construc tion since early 2020. “It’s a wonderful boat; it replaces a vessel that was built in 1942,” Ms Blount noted. “We told the customer that our boat’s going to last as long as that one!” she added, laughing. Ms Blount concluded with some insight into the company’s passion for the work it does.“When our employees go on vacations, they’re always tracking down the Blount boats that they’ve built. They consider the boats to be ‘their’ boats. There’s definitely something special about building a product with your own hands. “We build beautiful, useful products. It’s meaningful work.” n