What’s the best test of a successful boatyard? Customers coming back time and again for another boat seems the most obvious answer.

On that basis, Lee Shore Boats in Port Angeles, Wash., and Salish Seafoods, in Sheldon, Wash., have had a very productive relationship.  Salish Seafoods is owned by Washington State’s Squaxin Tribe, also known as “People of the Water.” Lee Shore Boats, owned by Eric Schneinder, has been working closely with Salish Seafoods for years.

Over the course of nearly a decade, Lee Shore Boats “has built an entire fleet of commercial vessels and aquaculture equipment for Salish Seafoods,” said Jim Schneider, Lee Shore Boats' office manager. That lineup includes 21 boats ranging from a 55-foot diesel powered scow, to dive boats, 24-foot skiffs, and a 40-foot power scow, plus a few oyster washing machines for Salish Seafoods oyster and clam operations on Squaxin Island.    

Lee Shore Boat’s newest addition to the Salish Seafoods fleet is the Seahawk, Salish Seafoods’ second 40’ x 14’ outboard powered aluminum scow for its oyster and clam operations.

Built with ¼-inch aluminum plating, the Seahawk was designed with forward bulwarks, a 6’ x 6’ raised wheelhouse and a crane for the transportation of Salish Seafoods oyster and clams. It was delivered in July of this year. A pair of 250-hp Yamaha outboards powers the Seahawk.

Schneider describes the Seahawk “as a general workhorse. The mothership of the whole program, for personnel transportation and the production and transportation of oysters.”

The deck-mounted Maximum Performance Hydraulics 1.25-ton knuckle-boom marine crane is operated from either the crane or from the wheelhouse with remote controls. Both the crane and the Seahawk’s heavy-duty hydraulic washdown pump are powered by a 15 hp, 8 gpm@ 2200 PSI hydraulic power pack mounted beneath the raised wheelhouse.