Tideman Boats opens first US production facility

Tideman Boats BV, a Dutch builder of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) boats, has opened its first US production facility in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Amsterdam-based Tideman, which builds recreational and commercial craft, has a focus on workboats such as buoy tenders, pilot boats, patrol launches and other uses requiring durability.

Tideman hulls are only produced with black HDPE to provide better protection from solar damage.

“We are very excited that we will now manufacture the powerfully designed Tideman RBB HDPE workboats in the USA,” Matt O’Sullivan, head of sales and business partnerships at Tideman Boats US, said in a statement to Plastics News. “Our high speed, lightweight, quiet, and rugged hulls are virtually unsinkable and have a limited lifetime warranty on the hull with a standard manufacturer’s warranty on installed components. The US market has been waiting for this.”

The “virtually indestructible” Tideman Rigid Buoyancy Boat (RBB) features a 100 per cent HDPE hull design. The Tideman RBB has a service life much longer than competing workboats, a very low carbon footprint during production, no bottom paint, no gelcoat, and are 100 per cent recyclable, the company says.

The expansion has been brought about partially because of the Jones Act, a federal law that requires goods shipped between US ports to be transported on ships that are built, owned and operated by US citizens or permanent residents. “It was suitable to expand and establish a manufacturing partnership with strategic partners who had serious manufacturing capabilities in North America,” O’Sullivan says.

The company says its HDPE hull features include “superb buoyancy” with density ranges from 0.93 to 0.97kg/dm3, lighter than fresh water and much lighter than seawater, zero corrosion, zero maintenance as oxygen, salt, and water have no damaging effect on HDPE. There is no time-consuming need to rinse after use, no gelcoat to repair and no bottom paint at all.

The boats are designed to have a five times lower carbon dioxide footprint compared to aluminium.

Tideman has a factory in Opmeer, Netherlands, and a workshop in Middenmeer, which employs 25 skilled craftsmen, according to the company’s website.