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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 69 Fact Book / Doing Business in Maine I N N OVAT I O N / R & D we've diversified. And the boatbuilding side of things did open a lot of doors. People were interested imme- diately: 'Oh, Lyman-Morse. You build beautiful boats.' Everyone has some kind of relationship with somebody who has a boat. It helps get your foot in the door." Reverse trend Often, the crossover occurs the other way around. Materials like fiberglass, carbon fiber and plastic resin have largely been refined through the chemical and aerospace industries before being adopted by the boatbuilding industry. e aerospace industry, for instance, developed the practice of impregnating carbon fiber material with resin (creating a composite material commonly called "pre-preg"), then laying the material in a mold and heat-treating it. Today, that process has been adopted by high-end builders. "High-performance prepreg materials are aerospace-grade materials that have trickled down to the boatbuilding industry, because boatbuilders are always looking for something a lot more high-per- formance," says Steve Hassett, president of Custom Composite Technologies Inc., a Bath company he started with his wife Maureen. "e aerospace indus- try has really high standards, so they do a lot of the legwork. Not to mention that they have pretty good size budgets to work with." Hassett has been a leader in the diversification trend. He started as a wooden boat builder, then went to work for custom racing sailboat builder Goetz Custom Sailboats in Bristol, R.I. at work included making America's Cup syndicates, which are always looking to the most advanced design and materials. "e simple fact is that they're trying, essentially, to design and build these boats right on the edge of fail- ure," Hassett says. "at's the only way you can be really competitive. ere are safety factors, but you can't have such a huge margin of safety that you're never going to win, because your boat's going to be too heavy. ey're building them strong enough to finish the race, but light enough to be competitive." Hassett's company has produced a wide range of products. It has worked with Massachusetts Institute of Technology solar-vehicle teams to build molds for their vehicles. It has produced fiberglass railing covers for residential use, a composite mold for a ride at Disneyworld and a refrigerated box for ship- ping pharmaceuticals. e company was hired by Zaha Hadid Architects in London to develop a wall relief and the mold parts for a carbon fiber, ceiling- mounted sculpture. It developed C-shaped leg molds for an "interactive" robot called the Maneuver RHex and developed by University of Pennsylvania students. Recent projects include a weatherproof "radome" structure for cellphone towers, and carbon fiber components for guitar interiors. Fiberglass house In Belfast, Front Street Shipyard, was hired to help with the construction of a house made of fiberglass — a rou- tine material for boatbuilding but unique for houses. "We were contacted by a contractor in New York," says Front Street President JB Turner. "ey were building 15,000-square-foot fiberglass house in East Hampton, N.Y." e house is a swooping structure with compound curves that wouldn't have been possible with conven- tional wood or steel, he explains. "Fiberglass can do a lot of structural work that other materials can't," he says. "If you're building a spaceship of a house, it's hard to get wood to bend like that." Fiberglass is also great for durability in all condi- tions, he adds. "Take a conventional house and put into onto the ocean, it would last two seconds," he says. "But take a fiberglass boat on the ocean, and it can withstand any storm." Front Street Shipyard was hired to paint and "fair" the house. Best understood by boatbuilders, fairing is a meticulous process for ensuring a painted surface is completely smooth. "Most industries don't have to get into the fairing process, certainly not house build- ers," Turner says. Beautiful and practical Siblings Ben and Emily Davis saw the opportuni- ties for crossing boatbuilding expertise with non-boat applications when they started OpBox. e business uses portable storage containers as retail pop-ups, hospitality locations, offices and trade-show booths. ey contract with Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol to provide interior finish and install marine-grade sys- tems, including electrical and plumbing work. Watertight boxes, durable but beautiful fin- ishes and marine-grade systems, suitable for boats, translate well to the OpBox, which are designed to be weather-resistant as technically advanced mobile structures, says Ben Davis. e choice of Gamage was natural, says Davis, whose background includes yacht club management and founding True Course Yachting, a services busi- ness for boat owners. Gamage had just finished its own unusual proj- ect: a customized, high-end refit of a bus. "It was an 'Only in Maine' kind of thing," Davis says. For OpBox, he says, "It's the right group of crafts- people who have the innovative mindset that isn't just focused on boats, but understands the unique oppor- tunity we have in the boatbuilding world." Boatbuilders understand the demands on small modular spaces that move around — spaces that need "to be beautiful but also practical," Davis says. "e lights and the stove need to turn on. Boatbuilders have that mindframe because when they're building boats, the boats need to not only be beautiful, they need to work." As portable units, the pods must be suitable for movement on flatbed trucks. "Boatbuilders are the best in the world at making sure your stuff isn't flying around," he says "A lot of thought goes into securing things. at's a natural instinct with these guys." In one pod, the hardwood floor looks like the deck of a boat, he notes. "We benefit from that aesthetic, and it's uniquely Maine," he says. e Maine boatbuilding brand, in fact, contributes to marketing of the OpBox. "We have some of our bigger customers up from, say, New York City," he says. "We drive them up the coast and down the peninsula to Gamage, they meet the authentic Maine boatbuilder, and there's their OpBox being built right alongside a 40-foot Hinckley sailboat. at experience is one-of-a-kind." L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r w r i t e r , c a n b e r e a c h e d a t l s c h r e i b e r @ m a i n e b i z . b i z Front Street Shipyard deployed its expertise when it was hired to paint and 'fair' a fiberglass house in East Hampton, N.Y. P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F F RO N T S T R E E T S H I P YA R D Fiberglass can do a lot of structural work that other materials can't. If you're building a spaceship of a house, it's hard to get wood to bend like that. — JB Turner Front Street Shipyard

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