Gladding-Hearn delivers pilot boat to Cape Fear

摘要

A t the end of April, Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Somerset, Mass., delivered the Cape Fear Pilot III, a 52'xl7'x4'8" pilot boat, to the Wilmington-Cape Fear Pilots Association in Southport, N.C. Gladding-Hearn has delivered scores of pilot boats, but this one marks a milestone in the company's history. It's the 400th boat Gladding-Hearn has built since the boatyard opened in 1955 — 77 of those have been pilot boats. The company's first pilot boat was a steel 48 footer. "It was a 10-knot launch for the Delaware pilots," said Gladding-Hearn's Peter Duclos. "Building small steel boats in 1955 was kind of a novel thing. Most of them were wood, including the launches."