Shipbuilding History

Marinette WI

Marinette Marine was established by Clarence Boren and Max Hellerman in 1942 and started by building five wooden barges and six wooden tugs for the war effort. In 1954, control of the company passed to Harold Derusha, who had been a machinist in the yard when it started, and from him to his three sons in 1969. Thirty years later, in 1999, Manitowoc Corp. bought it but they sold it in 2008, together with Bay Shipbuilding and Cleveland Ship Repair, to the Italian shipbuilding giant, Fincantieri. It is now called Fincantieri Marinette Marine. Overall, Marinette has produced over 1500 boats of varying size and complexity and has grown into being a sophisticated mid-sized shipbuilder. The table below is in three parts. The first part attempts to list all the individually named or numbered vessels built by Marinette, whether governmental or commercial; the second part lists the yard's major government contracts; and the third lists its multi-vessel small craft contracts. In the third group, the contract summary, highlighted in green, is followed by details of those boats on each contract that were subsequently transferred to the private sector. This may all be a bit complex, but this company has produced 1500 boats. Note that the company started out with a traditional sequential hull numbering system; in 1977 it switched to a four-digit system in which the first two digits were the contract year; then in the early 90s, it switched to its present three-digit system, in which the first digit apparently represents the type of vessel. Visit the company at fincantierimarinettemarine.com.