The Hinckley Company Blends Tradition with Technology
To Build World-Class Sailing Yachts and Jet Boats

When The Hinckley Company introduced its revolutionary jet-powered Picnic Boat® in 1994, many considered the move to power boats a surprising departure for the Maine boat builder.  Hinckley, after all, had become synonymous with impeccably crafted sailboats for discerning yachtsmen around the world.

But the first Hinckleys were actually power boats. What’s more, dramatic innovations like the Picnic Boat are precisely what have kept the company on the cutting edge of boat building for more than seven decades.

Established in 1928 by Henry R. Hinckley in Southwest Harbor, Maine, the company originally built wooden workboats designed to endure the rigors of Down East fishing, lobstering and cruising.  The company then played an important role in World War II, building more than 500 picket boats, towboats and yawls for U.S. forces.

By the 1950s, however, Hinckley had turned its attention to pleasure boats and soon became America’s leading producer of wooden sailboats. The company pioneered the use of fiberglass in hulls in the mid-50s and launched its first Bermuda 40 yacht in 1960.  The B40, as it became known, was revered for its masterful marriage of the new fiberglass technology with the fine wood joinery for which Hinckleys had always been known.

The company’s commitment to advancing boat-building technology, while preserving its tradition of fine craftsmanship, continued during the 1970s and 1980s when it introduced its line of Hinckley and Sou’wester® sailboats.  In 1990, Hinckley became the first American builder to convert entirely to Kevlar® hybrid composites for both hulls and decks.

A few years later, the company was also the first to adopt the SCRIMP® process and DualGuard® composite construction in which outer layers of Kevlar/E-glass are bonded to an inner skin of high-strength carbon fiber. The result is a fully integrated hull system that is stronger, stiffer and more resistant to impact, yet weighs 14% less than conventional laminates. The process also reduces environmental emissions by 98%.

Hinckley’s high-tech wizardry may have reached a zenith when it introduced the Picnic Boat in 1994. Although jet drives had been tested and proven on military boats, commercial ferries and fishing vessels, the company was the first to successfully incorporate jet propulsion into a semi-custom luxury yacht. The two-year research and development project paid off: the Picnic Boat proved extremely popular and soon created a whole new class of yachts, with imitators scrambling to keep up.

Breaking even more new ground, the company developed and introduced JetStick® in 1998. The computerized maneuvering system – which operates much like a joystick – allows intuitive, highly accurate control of the jet boats with a single hand. JetStick immediately became the standard on the Picnic Boat and other jet boats soon to follow.

Spurred by the popularity of the Picnic Boat, Hinckley introduced two larger jet boats: the Talaria® 44 Jet in 1999 and the Talaria 40 Jet in 2000. In 2001, the company introduced the Talaria 29 C “Center Console” and Picnic Boat EP, which features an extended pilothouse for enhanced comfort.  The Talaria 29 R “Runabout” and Talaria 44 Flybridge were introduced in 2002. A year later, the Talaria 55 Motor Yacht and Talaria 55 Flybridge made their debut.  The company’s new propeller-driven yachts – the Hinckley SC series of express cruising yachts – also made their debut in late 2003.

Due in large part to the success of its jet boats, Hinckley built a new multi-million dollar manufacturing facility in Maine and more than doubled its workforce to help meet demand for the yachts.  The company also expanded its apprentice program to train a new generation of workers in the “art and science” of building a Hinckley.

The company acquired The Ted Hood Companies, better known as Little Harbor, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1999. The company is also expanding outside of Maine, establishing sales offices in Stuart, Florida; Annapolis, Maryland and Harbor Springs, Michigan.   The company now has full-service boatyards in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Stuart, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, Southwest Harbor Maine and Oxford, Maryland.

While the company’s new power boats have been taking off, Hinckley’s traditional sailing yachts have continued to attract discriminating buyers from around the world. The company is currently building numerous semi-custom sailboats up to 70 feet in length. Introduce in 2004, the new Hinckley daysailer, the DS42, has wide appeal to the sailboat enthusiast and has created a new genre of Hinckley daysail boat owners.

2009 will see the launch of the new Picnic boat 37’ with a pair of Volvo 300 HP

Today, The Hinckley Company is recognized as one of the world’s premier builders of semi-custom sailboats and power boats.  Hinckley yachts, which are marketed under the Sou’wester and Talaria range in length from 29 to 70 feet.  In addition to its boat building operations, Hinckley provides maintenance, repair and storage services, and operates a yacht brokerage, charter service and retail store.

To buy such an object is pure passion. The shipyard’s name, the tradition and the line of the boat are the magic ingredients. If you buy a hinckley you will also gain the fantasy surrounding it. Is this enough to justify the price? It is very difficult to say. As all the extremely unique things, hinckley is incomparable.

If you fall in love with her you will never compare her with something else. Because it is not only a boat, but it represents a philosophy of sailing.

Therefore it is a very fashionable object, created in this way with the purpose of living the sea in a very peculiar way.
In practice then it is realized with crazy times and efforts, like the stunning cycle to paint the interiors. It is a really fabulous boat, very different from the mass-produced plastic boats which we usually see. You have to savour, to understand, to share all of this. But when you do it, you will have no choise.