Shipbuilding History

Construction records of U.S. and Canadian shipbuilders and boatbuilders

This is an ongoing project. The primary mission of these pages is to document the records of U.S. and Canadian shipbuilders and boatbuilders including the construction of ships in U.S. and Canadian yards by type, function, time period, and provides some industry statistics. The data covers naval, merchant and recreational vessels.

The Naval Marine Archive has been asked to ensure the longevity and sustainability of more than twenty years of research by Tim Colton. In the longer term, full integration into our relational databases, with readily available accessibility to search functions is our goal. In the interim, we are transcibing much of the "static" data to current technological web standards while respecting Tim Colton's approach to indexing the data. Please see the original index

More than five hundred tables can currently be referenced as follows:

Canada:

Built in Canada since WWII, including:

Naval vessels
Coast Guard and RCMP vessels

Canadian builders of large ships and rigs, including:

Active builders of large ships and rigs
15 Active builders of smaller vessels
3 Interesting builders from before WWI
19 Builders who were only active in WWI
35 Builders who were only active in WWII
Other boatbuilders

United States:

Large ships built in the US - 80 yards including the "big five"
Shipbuilders Active Between the Civil War and WWI - older shipyards
Large naval ships and submarines starting in the late 19th century
Small ships, boats and craft built for the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army and N.O.A.A.
Post-WWII Shipbuilders listing nearly 400 U.S. builders of small vessels
Naval Ship Yards U.S. Naval shipyards and bases
Smaller and/or occasional boatbuilders active at some time since World War One

Shipyards considered as WWI and WWII emergency builders:

Builders of large ships and rigs
Builders of smaller ships, boats and barges

Other shipyards:

Ropner Shipping Company - West Hartlepool, U.K.

General:

Commercial vessels - Canadian built since Worl War Two
High value LNG Carriers, Large LPG Carriers, Cruise Ships, Offshore Rigs
Merchant ships Commercial vessels built in U.S. shipyards in wartime

Yachts:

These tables cover shipyards that were involved with wartime production of naval and civilian vessels. While many purely recreational, racing, cruising and pleasure boats are included, these are not the primary focus of the data:

Builders of Large Custom Yachts
U.S. yacht builders active in wartime

ShipBuildingHistory – the legacy of Tim Colton

The main index to Mr Colton's data pages.

Tim Colton's original index page

Mr Colton's main index page (Microsoft MS "FrontPage" v11.0)