Boat company expands to Bucksport Cramped in Ellsworth, Union River to spread out in new building

ELLSWORTH – A local boat company that has grown from a one-man operation a decade ago to a team of 16 employees is planning to move from its location on Water Street to a new building in Bucksport’s industrial park.

The Union River Boat Co. has taken advantage of Bucksport’s “free land” program, in which the town has agreed to give deeds to the company for two town-owned lots in the industrial park. Owner Richard Ryder plans to move the company into a 15,000-square-foot building he plans to construct on the site.

“We’ve just run out of room,” Ryder said Monday.

The main shop, located on the shores of the Union River, proves that fact. The floor is chock full of a variety of different molds for everything from a full pilothouse and a shower stall to skiff hulls and a boat seat. The basement storeroom is full of molds not in use, and the crew on Monday has to shift projects around the floor in order to make space for a hull being removed from its mold.

The business also occupies a leased building nearby on Water Street.

The company creates fiberglass component parts, mainly for boat building companies in the area. The Hinckley Co., for example, has been a longtime customer. According to Ryder, Union River has made components for most of the 300 or so Hinckley picnic boats and continues to provide components for many of the company’s other boats.

Rib Craft USA of Massachusetts also has become a regular customer for the Union River Boat Co., which builds the complete fiberglass structure for a rigid-bottom inflatable boat.

“We give them the fiberglass structure of the boat, and they put on the filters, the engines, controls, etc.,” Ryder said.

The company also does most of the tooling for the boat components, creating the fiberglass molds for the different boat parts it fabricates. Union River is one of the few producers of those molds in the Northeast.

Ryder was a carpenter for the Hinckley Co. in the early 1990s and also worked as a subcontractor when he was asked to make a wooden mold for a component. Once the mold was done, he was asked if he could finished the job and fabricate the component.

“All of a sudden, I was in the fiberglass business,” he said. “We’ve just grown from there.”

The company now has 13 employees, plus the three family members, Ryder, wife and co-owner Pat, and daughter Belle, who recently joined the company as its production manager. Belle holds a mechanical engineering degree, which, she said, is a help in the business.

“It helps in the thought process,” she said. “We don’t do much of the engineering here, but it helps in dealing with the engineers who design these things.”

The move to Bucksport is a major investment for the company, Ryder said. Although the free land from the town was a big incentive, the construction and outfitting of the new space will still cost the company about $850,000. The new structure includes 15,000 square feet of production space, plus a 1,500-square-foot office area.

It will allow the company to expand its operations by adding an overhead crane to accommodate larger projects, Ryder said.

“Right now, we can’t bring in any projects that would tie up the shop for any amount of time,” he said.

The larger building also will allow the company to develop its own production line, he said.

“We’ve got a 16-foot skiff planned,” he said. “The design is pretty much done for that.”

The company will continue to create its own molds and hopes to also build the fiberglass molds for other companies as well, Belle Ryder said.

Union River Boat Co. also may be able to pick up additional work from other boat builders who are unwilling or unable to comply with stricter emissions standards that will go into effect in August. According to Ryder, the company has been in compliance with those standards for some time now, so the new mandate won’t affect their operation.

The new operations will translate into an increase in the work force. Ryder said he expects to at least double his employees within the first two years of operation in the new facility. The move to Bucksport also will provide a wider labor pool to draw from, he said.

The project has received approval from the town’s planning board, but still requires a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection and funding approval through Eastern Maine Development Corp. and the Small Business Administration for a portion of the financing. Union River already has bank approval for 60 percent of the funding for the project.

Ryder expects to break ground this fall and have the building up by late October or early November. He plans to move into the new building by February.