When people think about West Coast boatbuilding, images of California’s fiberglass heyday or the cold, deep waters of Puget Sound might come to mind. But tucked into Canoe Bay on Portland, Oregon’s Hayden Island—near where the Columbia and Willamette rivers meet—is a lesser-known but well-respected boatyard: Schooner Creek Boat Works. The yard is a full-service boat builder and repair facility, a dealer and a community hub for sailors in the Pacific Northwest.
Under new ownership, Schooner Creek has strengthened its reputation as both a trusted service yard and a specialist builder of large sailing catamarans. Owner Kevin Flanigan and his team—including former Brittany commercial fisherman and general manager Pascal Le Guilly—have steered the company toward charter catamarans for California and Hawaii while maintaining a strong presence in racing and custom builds. The yard’s newest project, a 65-foot sailing catamaran designed by Morrelli & Melvin, is nearing completion and will soon make its way to Hawaii.
“Building a boat is kind of like having a baby,” says Flanigan, an avid sailor who bought Schooner Creek in 2015 from Steven Rander. For the yard’s 37 employees, launches from the cradle crane are milestones: months of careful work that culminate in a single, satisfying moment. “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 adds.
Schooner Creek’s history reaches beyond charter work. The yard and designer Tom Wylie produced Ocean Planet, an IMOCA Open 60 that helped skipper Bruce Schwab become the first American to finish the 2004–2005 Vendee Globe after 109 days at sea. Other notable Schooner Creek projects include the Fox 44 Ocelot and the Sunrise 70 ocean racer Rage, which won the Pacific Cup from Los Angeles to Tahiti in 2012. Flanigan has deep personal ties to these boats; he raced on Rage for more than two decades and owned Ocelot while competing in California and Mexico races.
Le Guilly’s arrival at Schooner Creek brought a maritime perspective forged on the Bay of Biscay. A former commercial fishing captain in Brittany, he left month-long, 400–500-nautical-mile trips offshore to help raise a family. He joined Schooner Creek in 2006 and has since become a key part of the yard’s management and construction teams. “Now the fact that I’m building boats, it’s like a full circle,” he says, laughing about his wife’s teasing that he reads and watches videos about boats even on vacation.
Beyond large sailing catamarans and high-performance racers, Schooner Creek’s portfolio includes runabouts, power catamarans and specialty projects such as the ocean rowboat Emerson, which Jacob Hendrickson used for a solo, nonstop, unsupported row across the Pacific from Neah Bay, Washington to Cairns, Australia. Today, building 45- to 65-foot charter catamarans is the yard’s primary focus. One current project, the 65-foot Four Winds III, will replace its sistership Four Winds II in Hawaiian waters for Maui Classic Charters.
“We work very closely with Morrelli & Melvin,” Flanigan notes of the California-based design firm. One standout feature on the 65-footer is an underwater hull window that required special engineering to meet USCG passenger vessel standards. Le Guilly explains that integrating the window was a structural challenge: it had to meet regulatory requirements while remaining one of the vessel’s strongest areas.
Schooner Creek is also a major regional service yard. The nine-acre facility handles more than 600 repair and maintenance projects each year and maintains a waitlist of over 40 boats. Amenities include a 30,000-square-foot warehouse used for large new builds, an infusion station, wood shop, rigging loft, full mechanical and electrical capabilities, metal fabrication, a 70-ton Travelift, and a dry dock. The yard is also the Pacific Northwest dealer for Invincible center-console fishing boats from Florida.
“I’ve learned that it’s important to be diversified in your business,” Flanigan says. Recessions shrink refit and repair markets, so multi-year builds, brokerage services and a mix of commercial and recreational work help the company stay resilient. That diversified approach has kept Schooner Creek attractive to a broad range of customers and helped sustain steady growth.
Environmental stewardship and employee quality of life matter to the yard as well. Canoe Bay offers sheltered, wildlife-rich surroundings where osprey patrol the skies and fish frequent the shallows. To protect that habitat, Schooner Creek installed a StormwateRx system to remove contaminants from rainwater runoff before it returns to the bay. Those efforts were recognized in 2022 when the yard received Oregon’s Golden Anchor award for the most environmentally sound marina. “We’re not trying to destroy things to get our buck. We want to make sure it’s in sync with our surroundings,” Flanigan says.
Looking ahead, Schooner Creek plans to continue building commercial charter catamarans while remaining open to custom projects. Flanigan envisions building a catamaran from one of the yard’s own molds—one he and his wife could sail themselves—but the company will keep serving clients who bring their own plans. The yard’s work doesn’t end with a launch: Schooner Creek tracks and supports each boat long after completion, nurturing repeat customers and long-term relationships.
“When we build a boat, we don’t build it for two or three years and walk away,” Le Guilly 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.”
This story was originally published in the March 2024 Issue.