Page 34: of Marine News Magazine (November 2025)

33 35

Great Boats 2025

Boat of the Year – The Shipyard

Master Boat Builders

MASTER BOAT BUILDERS:

A Family Shipyard at Full Steam

Expansion into Harbor Tug sector helps Master Boat Builders nearly double in size, from 200 to 400 employees building eight to nine vessels per year, and the prospect of a new drydock plus additional partnerships and government construction contracts promises to power the company forward further, faster. Garrett Rice,

President, Master Boat Builders, discussed the impetus for the company’s growth, and the growth in U.S. shipbuilding overall since the start of 2025 when President

Trump made industrial revitalization and shipbuilding a priority.

By Greg Trauthwein hen Garrett Rice walks through the gates achieved in recent years. The company has grown from about of Master Boat Builders (MBB) each 200 employees two and a half years ago to roughly 400 today, morning in Coden, Alabama, he’s not just operating across two facilities, its main yard in Coden and a wet

W clocking into work, he’s continuing a fam- dock facility in Theodore, Alabama, about 30 minutes north.

ily legacy that began nearly half a century ago. Founded by This growth hasn’t been accidental. his father in the late 1970s, the family-owned shipyard has Rice attributes it to focus, diversi? cation, and a sharpened grown from a small Gulf Coast operation a busy dynamic sense of purpose. “For the longest time, we were a tradi- tugboat builders. Today, under Garrett’s leadership, MBB tional workboat yard building supply boats, ? shing vessels, is on a trajectory of rapid expansion, doubling its work- offshore tugs,” he explains. “But in recent years, we’ve really force, ramping up production, and positioning itself to honed in on the harbor and offshore tug market, which we play a larger role in a resurgent U.S. shipbuilding industry. see as sustainable for the long term.”

That focus has allowed the company to increase its output

Bayou Beginnings dramatically. “We’ve gone from building ? ve or six tugs a “Coden, Alabama is as far south in Mobile County as you year to eight or nine,” says Rice. “That’s a 35% increase in can get,” Rice said. “It’s a small bayou, but it’s home.” That throughput, no small feat when you consider the man-hours humble setting belies the scale of what Master Boat Builders has it takes to build a tug.” 34 | MN November 2025