QUINCY
With budget pressures threatening to sink the South Shore’s ferries, supporters are giving the MBTA plenty of reasons to keep the routes afloat. They keep cars off the roads, offer commuters a faster route into Boston and provide economic support for businesses near their docks.
But there’s another argument for retaining these boats: Unlike other vehicles in the MBTA’s mass transit fleet, the ferries were manufactured here in Massachusetts, by a local company. The T’s buses and rail cars were made out of state, by out-of-state firms. (Although the newer Green Line trolleys were assembled in Littleton, by Italy’s AnsaldoBreda.)
Somerset-based Duclos Corp., which has done business as Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding since its launch on the Taunton River in 1955, has become the dominant manufacturer of catamaran ferries on the East Coast in recent years. The last of Massachusetts’ commercial shipbuilders, Gladding-Hearn has been owned and run by the same family since George Duclos bought out his two partners Preston Gladding and Richard Hearn in 1983.