Diversification Leads To Success For Local Boatbuilder

If you happened to be in and around Newport in the late 1980s and saw a big yellow retired electric company van with Mobile Marine Services painted on the side, you saw the beginnings of .

John Meikle took the van to local boatyards when he wasn't at his day job, working for one of the large boatbuilders that were in the area at the time, including Tillotson-Pearson, Freedom Yachts and Merrifield-Roberts. Mounted in the van, Miekle had the big tools necessary to do metal and fiberglass repairs on customers' boats, but he ran the fledgling company out of a two-stall garage in Newport.

It was at Merrifield-Roberts where, as project manager, Meikle began work on developing the flying boat, called the Sea Jet. Meikle had the experience to take on the project, because as a teenager in England, he completed a four-year mechanical engineering apprenticeship with British Aerospace, where they built the Tornado and Jaguar jet fighters.

When Merrifield-Roberts approached him to take over development of the Sea Jet, Meikle moved the young business to a barn he and his son Steve built for the purpose at his property in Portsmouth. As the company grew, they moved to a location just behind where they are now, off Fish Road in Tiverton. As production of a variety of products geared up, and neighbors complained about the smell of the fiberglass, they moved to their current location on Eagleville Road in 2000.

"From acorns, large oaks grow," said Meikle, reflecting on where he started.

Meikle recalled the construction of the first building on the new two-acre property. He and his two sons, Steve, who runs the operations at the shop, and Jesse Dufault, who runs the woodshop, and the crew assembled the building in the middle of a snowstorm in February using just a forklift and manpower. He noted there was not even a floor on which to run the forklift.

The crew, which now consists of 10 employees, eventually built the four buildings on the property. Meikle Marine operates out of two of those buildings. The other two are currently being leased out to other businesses.

This fall, the crew at Meikle Marine is busy making fiberglass components for the  MJM 29Z, MJM 34Z, MJM 36Z and MJM 40Z built by Boston Boat Works for MJM Yachts of Boston, as well as some other interesting projects, including composite characters for PUMA, which were shipped to Prague for a store opening. Meikle is also bidding on several other projects in a variety of industries at the current time, and hopes to begin working with one or more of these companies in the very near future.

Meikle is also continuing work on the flying boats. The original flying boat, which they had flying over Mount Hope Bay in the early 2000s, is at the shop and has been taken apart for some modifications. Meikle recalled that all together he had spent ten years developing that craft, which cruised at 110 mph and the original intent for which was to be a fast ferry between St. Croix and St. Thomas.

The plan was once the conceptual flying boat was airborne and the bugs worked out, they would enlarge the craft to carry six people. Meikle noted the original investor put a lot of money into the project, but due to a fire at a commercial property he owned in New York, as well as his age at the time, he decided to let the project go dormant.

"Everything has its time," said Meikle, "and I think the time is right for the flying boat. It's time to bring it back." 

Meikle quickly added, however, that work on his special projects only takes place when there is time in the schedule, which is currently full with customer projects.

Over the years, Meikle Marine has also built plugs, boat hulls or components for the following companies, among others: Vanguard of Portsmouth, Elco Motor Launch of Athens, NY, Newport Yacht & Launch Company, Pleasant Bay Boat & Spar Company of Orleans, MA, New England Boatworks of Portsmouth and Northern Bay Downeast Yachts. 

Other products Meikle produces include ClamDoor bulkhead doors for Humphrey's Building Supply, Massage spas for AMI Spas of Mystic, CT and signs for Talbots.

"'You have to be diversified,' was something Everett Pearson told me a long time ago," said Meikle.

And Meikle Marine is diversified, for sure, with the capability of handling a wide range of projects from developing flying boats, to building fiberglass boats and the tooling to build the boats (including the wooden plugs), to providing CAD/CAM services and CNC router services, to precision machining and welding.

For more information, visit meiklemarine.com. Meikle Marine is located at 51 Eagleville Road, Tiverton. The telephone number is 401-265-5814.