Page 28: of Marine News Magazine (January 2022)

27 29

Feature

Police and Fire Boats

Silver Ships

Endeavor Series 30-foot vessel built by Silver Ships for the Bayport Fire Department in Bayport, N.Y.

Strong Demand with More

Orders on the Horizon

By Eric Haun oday, despite an abundance of market challenges boat builds, according to Matthew Velluto, the company’s and supply chain headaches, many of America’s director of business development and marketing.

police and ? re boat builders are in possession of “We’ve seen strong demand with some good steady growth the shipyard holy grail: a healthy backlog. in the police and ? re boat market. Based on our current back-

T

Dave Hunt, business development and project manager log, we’re looking to be where we were in 2021 again in 2022 for Theodore, Ala. based Silver Ships said vessel orders from with maybe a bit more growth,” Velluto said. “It’s a market police and ? re agencies have been on the rise and that the that we expect will continue to grow. Order levels are as good expectation is that this trend will continue. “Between ves- as they’ve ever been, and we’re in a good strong position, both sels delivered and in production, we have seen a year over in terms of current backlog, as well as demand and interest.” year increase steadily since 2017; particularly the last two For RIBCRAFT, key demand drivers are its vessels’ versa- years. We anticipate a strong growth in 2022 and beyond.” tility, ease of use and rapid deployment capabilities, Velluto

And it’s a similar story for other yards across the U.S., explained. “A lot of departments and agencies are looking from Metal Shark on the Gulf Coast to Moose Boats and for vessels that offer an ease of operation, are functional and

North River Boats in the West, each of which has remained simply enable them to do what they need to do. We’ve seen active building for police and ? re agency customers. departments going from larger boats and scaling back to

RIBCRAFT USA in Marblehead, Mass. is a specialist something that can get out on the water quickly and be eas- builder of rigid-hulled in? atable boats (RHIB) from 15 ily operated by one or two operators, with the added bene? t to 41 feet, and about 30% of its business is police and ? re of lower maintenance and operational costs.” 28 | MN January 2022