Mainebiz

V O L . X X I X N O. V I I n addition to being a significant employer in omaston, where the company builds yachts, Lyman led the $15 million redevelopment of the Camden waterfront, expanding the original Wayfayer boatyard to include 44,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, office space and yacht services. Lyman also had a key role in the renovation of the historic American Boathouse at the head of Camden Harbor. On the boat building side, the Lyman-Morse 46 yacht won the 2023 "Boat of the Year" award from Cruising World magazine. It has also pushed innovation: work- ing with a California company, Lyman-Morse has developed the Navier 27 underway, an electric, semi- autonomous foiling vessel. Mainebiz: In Camden, you started with a boatyard and expanded into retail and mixed-use. How did the shift in thinking come about? Drew Lyman: We bought it eight years ago. It's been one of the best acquisitions for us. [Originally] it was a very old, very run-down building. Quaint for Maine. But our brand is a bit higher end. e restaurant had a fire, with a lot of smoke damage. We saved the big boat shed, but then gutted it and outfitted it. Now it is a modern boatyard. If you go to [the Safe Harbor] Newport Shipyard in Newport, R.I., they have offices and different spaces. I kind of borrowed that model a bit. is is a Maine version. Camden has that same beauty and accessibility. e value was there. We have workspace for the crew and a rigging shop. On the front side, it's mixed use, with two restaurants, retail and some residential on top. ere's also office space. e idea was to bring energy, vibrancy to the boatyard itself. It fills those docks. [Customers] like having a restaurant right off your dock. I'm a big believer in making it a place they'll tell everyone about. is is what customers want [from a marina]. You don't want to be too industrial anymore. MB: How did the American Boathouse project come about? DL: We worked through the general contractor, Cold Mountain Builders of Belfast. I knew the [boathouse] owners. ey knew we'd done high tech architectural work. We did the mahogany doors in front. We did PLC-actuated doors [a programmable logic control system], with a remote-control door system. We built the ramp system. MB: On the yacht-building side, the Lyman- Morse 46 yacht won Cruising World's 2023 'Boat of the Year' award for domestic boats. DL: It looks like a wooden boat, but it's very high tech, with titanium fixtures, a carbon stringer and cold- molded hull. It was designed by Kevin Dibbly out of P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D Drew Lyman is leading real estate development, yacht services, composites work — and, yes, boatbuilding B Y P e t e r V a n A l l e n CEO OF THE YEAR Drew Lyman President, Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding Inc. Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding Inc. lymanmorse.com 84 Knox St., Thomaston What it does: It includes a boatbuilding operation, composites fabrication and marina and yacht servicing. Year founded: 1978 Employees: 146 Drew Lyman is the top leader at Lyman-Morse Boatbuilders Inc., a Thomaston company that had its roots as the Morse Boatyard and was formally started in 1978 by Lyman's father, Cabot Lyman. Drew Lyman, president of Lyman-Morse Boatbuilding Inc., led the development of a 44,000-square-foot site, with restaurants, retail, office space and a marina, on Camden's harbor. M A R C H 2 0 , 2 0 2 3 10 More than boats

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