FLOOR SCORE
Unlike some other yards that outsource, Westport does upholstery and woodworking in-house. To refer to its departments as shops, though, seems inadequate. The cabinetry department alone occupies 80,000 square feet, about 25,000 more than the White House in Washington, D.C. at the Westport Yachts facilities in Washington State. Whether they’re on board the builder’s flagship 164 or the smallest series in the lineup, the 112, they’re being installed as paneling in staterooms and backlit countertops on bars. They’re soon joined by artwork, fine cutlery and more, all personally chosen by owners looking forward to taking delivery in the coming weeks and months.
These realities make it hard to imagine that, back in Westport’s early days in 1964, freshly caught salmon bounced about on its boats. As is the case with other Pacific Northwest builders, Westport started out constructing vessels for the region’s commercial-fishing fleet. (Some of Westport’s 170 or so fishing boats are still on the water today.)
Quite a number of changes have occurred for Westport since then, to say the least. Quite a number of changes have occurred in the yachting industry too. But the builder has never wavered from allcomposite construction, and, in offering semicustom mega-yachts, it continues to prioritize predictability — for the owner’s benefit as much as its own. Soon after the builder began its fishing-boat fleet, the yard added passenger vessels to its offerings. And when the fishing industry began declining in the late 1970s and ’80s, Westport turned to luxury yachts. The builder’s tough-minded engineering was well-suited for the switch to large, semidisplacement motoryachts. Equally well-suited was the emphasis on less maintenance, thanks to the builder’s all-fiberglass construction.
At first, Westport built components for other yards to put together, but eventually it built its own yachts, with arguably the most famous early launch being the 98-foot Golden Delicious. That was in 1988. Simply put, she was huge for her time, and she inspired a whole line of boats that were the same size.
As the industry grew, and as more ultra-highnet-worth buyers came into the market, Westport adapted. In 1998, the builder launched its first 112. With the arrival of the new century, it introduced the 130. Then, in 2006, Westport rolled out hull No. 1 of an even bigger series, the 164, which remains its flagship to this day.
Just as Golden Delicious was notable all those years prior, so too was the 164. Most yachts in the 164’s size range were — and still are — built with steel or aluminum hulls. Part of the reason is due to tradition, and part is due to bias. Through the early 1990s, some shipyards claimed it wasn’t possible to build a reliable all-fiberglass superyacht exceeding 150 feet. And yet another bias: Builders asserted that buyers in this size range only wanted fully custom yachts.
Westport, and the market, proved otherwise. The Westport 164 launched as the largest series-built