Our Story

The Hinckley Company started in 1928 as the Manset Boatyard in Southwest Harbor, Maine.  Henry R. Hinckley’s focus was on servicing the local lobster boats as well as the yachts of summer residents on Mt. Desert Island.  In 1933 Henry built his first boat, Ruthyeolyn, a 36-foot fisherman with beautiful lines that are surprisingly familiar and still look the part even today.  That first boat was fished hard for 9 months of the year and then varnished up and chartered in the summer months to vacationers.  In the 1940s we built tough-as-nails minesweepers and cruisers for the Navy and Coast Guard.  Following the war, we built our first outboard boats, the Kingfisher 15s, throughout the 1950s.

From the very beginning, the yachts from the Hinckley yard were kept to the highest standards.  Henry was not satisfied with many off-the-shelf parts and soon the yachts from Hinckley came to feature custom designed and fabricated hardware such as stanchions, chocks, pulpits and masts.   This attention to detail made these yachts distinctive and, in time, they would earn the collective admiration of sailors and yachtsmen around the world.