PORTLAND (AP) – An East Boothbay shipyard with a five-year backlog of orders is in negotiations to buy property in Bucksport in a deal that could triple its work force in the coming years.
Washburn & Doughty Assoc. Inc. has signed an agreement to buy 14 acres at a former oil terminal with 2,300 feet of frontage on the Penobscot River. If the deal goes through, the tugboat builder expects to hire as many as 200 new workers in the next few years, said company President Bruce Doughty.
The company has five years of back orders but no place to expand at its current site in East Boothbay, Doughty said. Negotiations for the land are at a crucial point, he said, and issues need to be settled over the next month or so for the sale to take place.
“If they are resolved, we go ahead,” he said. “If not, we walk away and it’s business as usual. And the jobs go somewhere else.”
Doughty and Bruce Washburn worked at Bath Iron Works in the 1970s before leaving to start their own company. They moved to an old shipyard on the Damariscotta River in 1984 and built a variety of fishing and ferry boats.
The company’s focus on tugs began around 1999, with a contract from Moran Towing Corp. of New Canaan, Conn.
Last fall, it signed a deal to build six tugboats by the middle of 2009. At the time, it was already building two 92-foot and two 121-foot tugs for Moran. The company now has a 50,000-square-foot facility.
“We’re maxed out, we’re using every inch,” Doughty said.
The Maine coast has limited deepwater commercial frontage that can accommodate a new shipyard, so Washburn & Doughty contacted Maine & Co., a Portland-based organization that typically markets Maine to out-of-state firms that are looking to relocate.
Maine & Co. was able to identify a former oil tank farm upriver from the Verso paper mill in Bucksport owned by Sprague Energy of Portsmouth, N.H.
Washburn & Doughty is conducting legal evaluations of the property, a process due to be completed next month.
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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com
AP-ES-02-22-07 1323EST
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