Portland Powerhouse
OREGON’S SCHOONER CREEK BOAT WORKS HAS A LONG AND UNIQUE BOATBUILDING HISTORY
When it comes to West Coast sailboat construction, images of California’s fiberglass heyday or the deep, cold waters of Puget Sound come to mind. But near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers—tucked away on Portland, Oregon’s Hayden Island, on quiet Canoe Bay—sits a boatyard many have heard of but few ever visit.
Schooner Creek Boat Works is a boatbuilder, a full-service yard and a boat dealer that non-boating locals may not know about. But thanks to new ownership and a team that includes a French commercial fisherman, the company is thriving. In addition to being a pillar of the regional boating community as a go-to yard, Schooner Creek is a leading builder of large sailing catamarans. Their latest build, a 65-footer, is nearing her maiden voyage.
“Building a boat is kind of like having a baby,” says Kevin Flanigan, owner of Schooner Creek and an avid sailor. Flanigan explains that boat launchings from the yard’s cradle crane are special occasions for the yard’s 37 employees. “You watch that thing being built for months and months and it seems like it takes forever, but then when it’s done it’s such an accomplishment,” he says.
Since Flanigan purchased the business in 2015 from Steven Rander, the yard has been building charter catamarans for the California and Hawaii markets. Yet Schooner Creek’s sailboat racing legacy is familiar to west coast racers and longtime fans of the Vendee Globe Round the World Race. Schooner Creek built Ocean Planet, the Tom Wylie-designed IMOCA Open 60 that allowed skipper Bruce Schwab to complete the 2004/2005 iteration of the race in 109 days, making him the first Ameri
can to finish that race. Other notable Schooner Creek/Tom Wylie racing machines are the Fox 44 Ocelot and the Sunrise 70 ocean racer Rage, which won the Pacific Cup from Los Angeles to Tahiti in 2012. Flanigan is intimately familiar with both boats.
“I’ve been sailing all my life,” he says. “When I first met Steven Rander, he had the boat Rage and I raced on that for over twenty years to Hawaii.” Flanigan also raced aboard for the Puget Sound Swiftsure and Oregon Offshore races. “I also owned Ocelot, I had that in the Bay Area for eight years racing the California Offshore and Mexico races.” In all, Flanigan has owned three different boats built by Schooner Creek in carbon fiber, fiberglass and wood.
Flanigan still can’t get enough of the boating life, especially the epic offshore racing scene. He’s introduced many Schooner Creek employees to offshore racing, including general manager Pascal Le Guilly, who is usually at his side. About two decades ago, Le Guilly was a commercial fishing boat captain in Brittany, France, working the Bay of Biscay. But the month-long trips that went 400 or 500 nautical miles offshore were not conducive to starting a family, so yard work and Portland beckoned. He joined the yard in 2006.
“My wife, she makes fun of me,” joked Le Guilly. “She’s like, you read about boats. You watch videos about boats. When we take some time off for vacation, you look at boats. I spent a lot of time on the ocean. And now the fact that I’m building boats, it’s like a full circle.”
Other notable builds from Schooner Creek include runabouts, power catamarans, and the ocean rowboat Emerson that was used by Jacob Hendrickson for his solo, nonstop, unsupported Pacific row from Neah Bay, Washington, to Cairns, Australia. But under Flanigan’s ownership, 45- to 65-foot charter sailing catamarans have become Schooner Creek’s bread and butter, which includes the 65-foot Morrelli & Melvindesigned Four Winds III that the yard is working on inside its 30,000-squarefoot warehouse. Four Winds III will go off to Hawaiii where it will replace the Four Winds II, another Morrelli & Melvin catamaran owned by Maui Classic charters. “We work very closely with Morrelli & Melvin,” Flanigan says about the renowned California-based catamaran design firm.
The 65-foot cat includes an underwater window that Le Guilly says was a challenge to build due to its complexity. Schooner Creek specializes in USCG- compliant passenger vessels
100 tons, so Schooner Creek set out to meet those standards with the hull window. “It’s actually the strongest part of the vessel,” Le Guilly says, “so that was challenging.”
According to Flanigan, new boat launchings serve as a crescendo for the employees. “The repair goes on and on forever and doesn’t really have that big finish,” he says. But the yard doesn’t j ust do new builds. Schooner Creek is one of the main service yards for miles around and has an active repair and maintenance operation that services over 600 boats a year (there is a waitlist of over 40 boats). The 9-acre facility has an infusion station, a wood shop, a rigging loft, full mechanical and electrical system capabilities, a metal fabrication shop, a 70-ton Travelift plus a dry dock, and is the Pacific Northwest dealer for the center console fishing boats from Florida’s Invincible Boats.
“I’ve learned that it’s important to be diversified in your business,” Flanigan says. “We’ve seen the refit and repair market dry up during recessions. Having a build that lasts multiple years can be a hedge against that if there’s a recession.” Starting a boat brokerage is another way to deal with economic downturns. “We try to be a diversified company so that we are attractive to a broad range of customers. It’s been working,” he says.
For Flanigan, both the quality of life for his employees and the environment is important to him. Canoe Bay is a quiet, sheltered place where an osprey is just as likely to be seen as a person and where large fish lazily float in the shallows by the docks. The yard invested in a StormwateRx system that removes contaminants from rainwater wash-off before the water flows back into the environment. In 2022, Schooner Creek won the Golden Anchor, an annual award that goes to the most environmentally sound marina in Oregon. “We’ve done a lot to increase the habitat here in the bay for the fish and the wildlife,” Flanigan says. “We’re not trying to destroy things to get our buck. We want to make sure it’s in sync with our surroundings.”
So what’s next for Schooner Creek? “Currently we are doing these commercial catamarans and they are fun,” Flanigan says, “but they are not as sexy as say a racing sailboat. We’re custom builders, so we’ll build to whatever plan a customer brings. I also have a vision of doing a catamaran from one of our own molds that my wife and I could sail.”
Dreams aside, the ongoing relationships with customers is big part of the daily work at Schooner Creek Boat Works. Le Guilly sums up the yard’s philosophy. “When we build a boat, we don’t build a boat for two or three years, he says. “When it’s done, it’s never over for us. We keep following that boat. At the end of the day, repeat customers are the ultimate endorsement.”