Mattapoisett Boatyard celebrates 50 years

Dec 5, 2012

It’s a ritual Art McLean has participated in for over 50 years, even before he established the Mattapoisett Boatyard in 1962. At 73, McLean still patrols the yard, although he now leaves most of the day-to-day responsibilities to his general manager and son-in-law Dave Kaiser.

“This is the only place I’ve ever worked in my life,” McLean said. “I started working here when I was 15-years-old.”

McLean grew up in Walpole but spent every summer in Mattapoisett at his family’s seasonal cottage on Point Connett.

“I always loved boats,” he said. “When I was 6 or 7 years old, I told my parents I wanted to own a boatyard.”

McLean received much of his early nautical education through the Point Connett Yacht Club, where he sailed Beetle Cats with the other kids in the summer community.

In the mid-1950s, McLean began working under John and Carlton Burr at Burr Brothers boatyard, originally located on the current site of the Mattapoisett Boatyard. The brothers eventually bought the Watts Yard in Marion.

Eventually John Burr left the marine business, leaving Carlton to run both the Watts Yard and the Mattapoisett facility. “After I got through with school, I talked Carlton into selling the place,” McLean recalls. “He wanted me to be the manager, but I said no. So I talked him into it. This was back in ‘62.”

McLean partnered with Jerry Stratton to buy the yard, but took over full ownership a few years later.

In the boatyard’s early days, McLean had his work cut out for him. He worked long hours, doing much of the hauling, launching, repairing, and general maintenance work himself.

“In terms of work ethic, Art is over the top,” said Kaiser, who has worked at the yard since he was in college. “He would run laps around the other workers when it came to hauling boats on the marine railway.”

When McLean purchased the boatyard, wooden boat maintenance was his bread-and-butter, but he soon branched out in to boat sales and even boat building.

Eventually, the advent of fiberglass production boats put McLean and the boatyard in the black for good. By the mid-1970s, almost anyone could own a boat, and they needed a yard to haul, launch, service, and store these vessels, not to mention service their moorings.

Today, the mooring service makes up a large chunk of the yard’s business. It currently owns 212 moorings, and services some 300 others each year.

“That was my goal: to build up a service business,” McLean says.

Looking back, McLean has no regrets about his decision to set his own mooring in the marine industry. “If I had to live my life over again, I wouldn’t do anything different. I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Learn more about the history of the Mattapoisett Boatyard at BoatingLocal.com